Volume 43 • Issue 3 IMS Bulletin

April/May 2014 Elect new Council members

Contents The annual IMS elections are announced, with one candidate for President-Elect— 1 IMS Elections 2014 Richard Davis—and 12 candidates standing for six places on Council. The Council nominees, in alphabetical order, are: Marek Biskup, Peter Bühlmann, Florentina Bunea, Members’ News: Ying Hung; 2–3 Sourav Chatterjee, Frank Den Hollander, Holger Dette, Geoffrey Grimmett, Davy Philip Protter, Raymond Paindaveine, Kavita Ramanan, Jonathan Taylor, Aad van der Vaart and Naisyin Wang. J. Carroll, Keith Crank, You can read their statements starting on page 8, or online at http://www.imstat.org/ Bani K. Mallick, Robert T. elections/candidates.htm. Smythe and Michael Stein; Electronic voting for the 2014 IMS Elections has opened. You can vote online using Stephen Fienberg; Alexandre the personalized link in the email sent by Aurore Delaigle, IMS Executive Secretary, Tsybakov; Gang Zheng which also contains your member ID. 3 Statistics in Action: A If you would prefer a paper ballot please contact IMS Canadian Outlook Executive Director, Elyse Gustafson (for contact details see the 4 Stéphane Boucheron panel on page 2). on Big Data Elections close on May 30, 2014. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to 5 NSF funding opportunity e [email protected] Richard Davis contact Elyse Gustafson . 6 Hand Writing: Solving the Right Problem

7 Student Puzzle Corner 8 Meet the Candidates 13 Recent Papers: Probability Surveys; Stochastic Systems

15 COPSS publishes 50th Marek Biskup Peter Bühlmann Florentina Bunea Sourav Chatterjee anniversary volume

16 Rao Prize Conference 17 Calls for nominations 19 XL-Files: My Valentine’s Escape

20 IMS meetings Frank Den Hollander Holger Dette Geoffrey Grimmett Davy Paindaveine 25 Other meetings 30 Employment Opportunities 31 International Calendar 35 Information for Advertisers Read it online at Kavita Ramanan Jonathan Taylor Aad van der Vaart Naisyin Wang http://bulletin.imstat.org IMS Bulletin 2 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3 Volume 43 • Issue 3 April/May 2014 IMS Members’ News ISSN 1544-1881 Ying Hung receives 2014 Tweedie Award Contact information The Institute of Mathematical Statistics has IMS Bulletin Editor: Anirban DasGupta selected Ying Hung as the winner of this Assistant Editor: Tati Howell year’s Tweedie New Researcher Award. Ying Contributing Editors: Robert Adler, Peter received her PhD in 2008 from Georgia Bickel, Stéphane Boucheron, David Hand, Vlada Limic, Xiao-Li Meng, Dimitris Institute of Technology, and is currently an Politis, Terry Speed and Hadley Wickham Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics and Biostatistics at Rutgers. Contact the IMS Bulletin by email: The IMS Travel Awards Committee, e [email protected] w http://bulletin.imstat.org selected Ying, “for her outstanding contri- https://www.facebook.com/IMSTATI butions to design and analysis of computer experiments and statistical analysis with Contact the IMS regarding your dues, membership, subscriptions, orders or applications in cell biology.” change of address: The IMS Tweedie New Researcher Award IMS Dues and Subscriptions Office will fund Dr. Hung’s travel to present the 9650 Rockville Pike, Suite L3503A Tweedie New Researcher Invited Lecture at Bethesda, MD 20814-3998 the IMS New Researchers’ Conference, held USA Ying Hung t 877-557-4674 [toll-free in USA] this year in Boston in August. t +1 216 295 5661[international] f +1 301 634 7099 American Association for Advancement of Science elects new Fellows Fienberg on Forensic e [email protected] The theme for the 2014 American Association for the Advancement Commission of Science (AAAS) annual meeting was Meeting Global Challenges: IMS Fellow Stephen Contact the IMS regarding any other matter, including advertising, copyright Discovery and Innovation—which also neatly describes the achieve- Fienberg (Carnegie permission, offprint orders, copyright ments of the 388 newly announced AAAS Fellows. Among them Mellon University) transfer, societal matters, meetings, fellows were six IMS members and Fellows. was appointed in nominations and content of publications: Philip Protter, Columbia University, was elected in the AAAS January to the newly Executive Director, Elyse Gustafson Section on Mathematics. In the Section on Statistics were Raymond created US National IMS Business Office J. Carroll, Texas A&M University, Keith N. Crank, retired, Bani K. Commission on PO Box 22718, Beachwood Mallick Robert T. Smythe OH 44122, USA , Texas A&M University, , Oregon State Forensic Science by t 877-557-4674 [toll-free in USA] University, and Michael Stein, University of Chicago. the US Department t +1 216 295 5661[international] The new AAAS Fellows who were recognized by their peers for of Justice and f +1 216 295 5661 their efforts to advance science or its applications. The new AAAS National Institute e [email protected] Fellows, whose names will be published in the 29 November issue of of Standards Science, were honored at the AAAS Fellows Forum on Saturday, 15 and Technology. Executive Committee February during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago, where they Fienberg and other President: Bin Yu received a certificate and a blue and gold rosette as a symbol of their commission mem- [email protected] distinguished accomplishments. bers will work to President-Elect: Erwin Bolthausen [email protected] The complete list of new AAAS Fellows is online: see improve the practice Past President: Hans R. Künsch http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2013/1125_fellows.shtml of forensic science by [email protected] developing guidance Treasurer: Jean Opsomer concerning inter- [email protected] sections between Program Secretary: Judith Rousseau [email protected] forensic science and Executive Secretary: Aurore Delaigle the criminal justice [email protected] system. = access published papers online IMS Journals and Publications April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 3 Annals of Statistics: Peter Hall and Runze Li http://imstat.org/aos http://projecteuclid.org/aos Annals of Applied Statistics: Stephen Fienberg http://imstat.org/aoas IMS Members’ News http://projecteuclid.org/aoas Annals of Probability: Krzysztof Burdzy http://imstat.org/aop Alexandre Tsybakov’s Humboldt Award Gang Zheng: 1965–2014 http://projecteuclid.org/aop IMS Fellow Alexandre Tsybakov, a faculty Gang Zheng lost his battle with head and Annals of Applied Probability: Timo Seppäläinen member of the CNRS Groupe de Recherche neck cancer on January 9, 2014. He was 48. http://imstat.org/aap http://projecteuclid.org/aoap en Economie et Statistique, has been elected Gang earned his BS from Fudan University Statistical Science: Peter Green the recipient of a Humboldt Research in Shanghai, and moved to work in the US http://imstat.org/sts http://projecteuclid.org/ss Award. He was nominated for this award in 1994, earning a master’s in mathematics at IMS Collections by Professor Enno Mammen, Universität Michigan Tech (1996) and PhD in statistics http://imstat.org/publications/imscollections.htm Mannheim, Germany. The award is conferred at The George Washington University http://projecteuclid.org/imsc in recognition of lifetime achievements in (2000). He then joined the National Heart, IMS Monographs and IMS Textbooks: David Cox http://imstat.org/cup/ research. In addition, award winners are Blood, and Lung Institute, where he worked invited to carry out research projects of until his death. His colleagues Nancy Geller, IMS Co-sponsored Journals and Publications their choice in cooperation with specialist Colin Wu, and Michael Lauer remember Electronic Journal of Statistics: George Michailidis colleagues in Germany; the aim is to further him as a “prolific and versatile statistician” http://imstat.org/ejs promote international scientific cooperation. whose “efficiency, creativity and generosity http://projecteuclid.org/ejs Electronic Journal of Probability: Michel Ledoux See http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/ were truly inspiring,” in an obituary at http://ejp.ejpecp.org web/programmes-by-target-group.html magazine.amstat.org/blog/2014/03/01/ Electronic Communications in Probability: obituaries-03-2014/ Anton Bovier http://ecp.ejpecp.org Current Index to Statistics: George Styan http://www.statindex.org Announcing Statistics in Action: A Canadian Outlook published by SSC log into members' area at imstat.org in Celebration of the International Year of Statistics Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics: Thomas Lee Jerry Lawless writes: In early 2013 the Statistical Society of Canada commissioned a volume http://www.amstat.org/publications/jcgs log into members' area at imstat.org of expository articles in celebration of the 2013 International Year of Statistics. The resulting Statistics Surveys: Donald Richards book Statistics in Action: A Canadian Outlook is published by Taylor and Francis/CRC Press http://imstat.org/ss in March 2014. By agreement with the publisher, an electronic version will be freely available http://projecteuclid.org/ssu at www.ssc.ca/statistics-in-action. Probability Surveys: Laurent Saloff-Coste http://imstat.org/ps The objectives for the volume are to present for http://www.i-journals.org/ps/ a general audience some of the ways that statistics IMS-Supported Journals contributes to science, technology, business, govern- Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré (B): Thierry ment and other areas, while highlighting important Bodineau & Lorenzo Zambotti http://imstat.org/aihp contributions being made by Canadians. We hope http://projecteuclid.org/aihp Bayesian Analysis: Marina Vannucci that in addition to serving an educational function, http://ba.stat.cmu.edu the book will motivate students and others to learn Bernoulli: Eric Moulines more about statistics and its role in diverse fields. http://www.bernoulli-society.org/ http://projecteuclid.org/bj The volume was edited by Jerry Lawless and pre- Brazilian Journal of Probability and Statistics: pared for publication by Christian Genest. It features Nancy Lopes Garcia http://imstat.org/bjps 21 articles by leading Canadian researchers, covering http://projecteuclid.org/bjps Stochastic Systems: Peter W Glynn a wide range of statistical methodology. Many http://www.i-journals.org/ssy/ subject areas are represented within the applications IMS-Affiliated Journals described, including climate change, e-commerce, ALEA: Latin American Journal of Probability and ecology, financial engineering, genetics, medicine, Statistics: Servet Martinez public health and resource management. Two http://alea.impa.br/english articles, on the development of statistics in Canada, and on Statistics Canada’s contributions to Probability and Mathematical Statistics: K. Bogdan, M. Musiela, J. Rosiński, W. Szczotka, & W.A. Woyczyński survey methodology, provide historical perspectives. http://www.math.uni.wroc.pl/~pms A table of contents can be found on the website, where you can also order a paper copy. 4 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

Big Data: promises, threats, and challenges

Stéphane Boucheron works in the Statistics Data is often equated with High Dimension, classical statistics. On the asymptotic side, it Group at the Laboratoire de Probabilités et that is with n ≪ p. For almost two decades, culminates with the theory of comparison Modèles Aléatoires, this has been the playground for inference of experiments. When we add lines to the Université Paris under sparsity constraints. This attempt to single data-frame—that is, when the sample Diderot. He writes cope with various aspects of the curse of becomes large—we are (sometimes) able to as one of our team dimensionality has stimulated many exciting realize that apparently very different statis- of Contributing developments both on the theoretical and the tical problems are actually equivalent to a Editors: algorithmic side. This endeavor has already Gaussian shift experiment. One may wonder Since 2011, the delivered Compressed Sensing, the Lasso and whether there could be a comparable and growing hype around a variety of sparsity-inducing penalization useful theory for statistical inference in this Big Data has provoked mixed reactions techniques, renewed interest in Greedy meth- new, broader framework. Plausible directions among statisticians. For a while, there will ods and a surge of interest in optimization in may come from computational or statistical be jobs in the data science industry. This the statistics community. learning theory. The classical supervised provides arguments when trying to recruit There might be something else. For math- learning setting has been supplemented students in a statistics curriculum. But ematical statistics, Big Data might not be by interesting variants, for example, semi- beyond this opportunity, the next question is reducible to high dimension. In the language supervised learning where the data (labelled how connected to statistics is this emerging of databases, a data frame corresponds to a examples) of a classification problem are data science? Comparing trends in the use relational table. The fact that many working supplemented by a (large) collection of of terms like big data analytics and big data statisticians are now able to query databases unlabeled examples, active learning where the statistics suggests that the Big Data industry or even data-warehouses (collections of statistician is allowed to request the labeling is not reducible to Statistics. I will not try possibly heterogenous databases) changes of well-chosen data. The asymptotic nature to define here what Big Data is or could be. the status of the traditional data-frame. of the theory of comparison of experiments Several articles in this Bulletin have already Whereas in the old days, building a data may seem unattractive to many statistical safely avoided this point. But I will comment frame represented a lot of work, and data had learners. Nevertheless, although the theory on connections between (mathematical) to be milked thoroughly, it is now possible to of statistical learning has largely complied statistics and computer science that are re-shape, enrich, decimate data-frame by que- with the line pioneered by Vapnik and emphasized by the so-called Data Deluge. rying back the databases, that is by filtering, Chervonenkis in the 60s and 70s—sticking Big Data is sometimes said to be hijacked joining and projecting a complex database to non-asymptotic risk guarantees, and by computer science at the expense of schema. Things may turn out to be slightly avoiding assumptions about the existence statistics. This feeling is a real concern on the different with NoSQL databases (Not Only of a correct model—the ability to compare applied side where databases, business intel- SQL databases), such as document databases, two classification experiments would nicely ligence, analytics, visualization and reporting and databases made of semi-structured data. complement the picture that has been built tools get most of the attention, while But the statistician’s job is quietly broaden- during the last 20 years (showing that the risk advances in computational statistics and ing. Statistical techniques like resampling suffered classification depends primarily on statistical learning remain in the shadows. methods (bootstrap, subsampling) make the complexity of the dictionary and on the Statistical theory might also be challenged by their way inside OLAP (OnLine Analytical called noise conditions). The semi-supervised the Big Data movement. For a century, high Processing) databases but OLAP databases scenario and its companion, active learning, church statistical theory has been shaped also constitute a challenge for those very provide us with plausible abstractions for Big by the analysis of experiments in agronomy, methods. Data analytics. physics, experimental psychology… In those The rate of data acquisition and data In my next columns, I will elaborate on contexts, data are usually made of a matrix (or dimensionality are not the only changes in plausible interactions between (theoretical) rather a data-frame) where n rows correspond the landscape. Thanks to the possibility of statistics and Big Data. to individuals and p columns to variables. In mining databases, data acquisition is also the mathematical statistics community, Big becoming more flexible. There is a theory of April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 5

NSF funding opportunity

Xiaoming Huo, Program Director for Statistics, Computational and visit the NSF/DMS web site (http://www.nsf.gov/div/index. Data-enabled Science & Engineering at NSF, writes: CDS&E-MSS jsp?div=DMS), and locate the link to CDS&E-MSS. After arriving at (Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering in the CDS&E-MSS web site, at the bottom of the web site, there is a Mathematical and Statistical Sciences) is a relatively new funding hyperlink named “What Has Been Funded…” which takes you to the opportunity that is managed by the Division of Mathematical NSF Award Search web site, where all active projects funded by the Sciences (DMS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Its CDS&E-MSS program are listed. An alternative means is to go to updated information can be found at the program web site (http:// the NSF Award Search web site and then use the CDS&E program www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504687). The next element code 8069 in search. submission window will be November 25–December 9, 2014. The The awards from CDS&E-MSS cover a wide range of topics: e.g., CDS&E-MSS program supports research that confronts the host of stochastic partial differential equations, Lie groups and representation mathematical and statistical challenges presented to the scientific and theory, manifold learning, sparse optimization, data assimilation, engineering communities by the ever-expanding role of computa- partially-observed Markov processes, and high dimensional learning. tional modeling and simulation on the one hand, and the explosion Many emerging methodologies have been proposed to be developed: in production of digital and observational data on the other. The e.g., efficient parallel iterative Monte Carlo methods, accelerated goal of the program is to promote the creation and development Monte Carlo schemes, solving large-scale eigen-related problems, and of the next generation of mathematical and statistical theories and measurement model specification search. Some projects are dealing methodologies that will be essential for addressing such issues. To this with newly emerged datasets: e.g., algebraic, geometric, and compu- end, the program supports fundamental research in mathematics and tational tools for data cloud and data array; LiDAR point cloud data; statistics whose primary emphasis is on meeting these computational and data with network structure. A wide range of applications can and data-related challenges. be found in the current awards, including tumor microenvironment, CDS&E-MSS can be viewed as a complement to the Big Data genetic association, brain connectivity, coastal ocean modeling, and endeavor of NSF (http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_ subsurface imaging. More information can be found online. id=123607) as well as a partner of the Data-to-Knowledge-to-Action Many CDS&E-MSS awards support interdisciplinary research. drive by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (White House) In fact, a large proportion of existing awards are jointly supported by (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/ several divisions within NSF. Data2Action%20Announcements.pdf). Principal investigators are advised not to submit to CDS&E-MSS CDS&E-MSS is highly integrated and collaborative with a proposal for research that could be supported by another DMS CDS&E, which is a larger effort in NSF and involves many other program. For CDS&E-MSS, besides addressing the data-enabling NSF directorates and divisions. We refer you to http://www.nsf.gov/ component (which seems to be a strength of many statistically mps/cds-e/ and http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_ oriented projects), it is equally important to argue convincingly on its id=504813 for further information on CDS&E. Note that CDS&E- application(s) in science and engineering. A project that appears to fit MSS and CDS&E are not the same; if proposed work emphasizes into other traditional programs will have low funding priority in the mathematical or statistical development, CDS&E-MSS may be a fit. If CDS&E-MSS program. the proposed work is more driven by particular scientific and/or engi- The statistics community ought to play a significant role in neering applications, the CDS&E program (which covers wider areas) the CDS&E-MSS. Note the letter D (in CDSE) stands for “data- may be more suitable. Also please note that CDS&E and CDS&E- enabled.” Because statistics is a significant component of data science, MSS have different submission windows and different solicitation statisticians are well positioned to tackle the problems that fit into numbers. Potential investigators should contact the program directors CDS&E-MSS. Proposers are more likely to succeed if they demon- to assess the suitability of their projects to a particular program. strate their efforts to collaborate with other scientists, who can serve You may have seen information on this program via a Dear as domain experts in the associated science and engineering fields. Colleague letter at www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/nsf12018/nsf12018.jsp, In summary, if you propose a research project for development and an October 2012 article by Jia Li in Amstat News. of the next generation of statistical theories and methodologies that CDS&E-MSS was launched in 2011. The first two rounds of will address computational and data-related challenges, with solid awards were made in the middle of 2012 and 2013, respectively. collaboration and important scientific and engineering application, To know more about CDS&E-MSS supported projects, one can CDS&E-MSS is your potential sponsor. 6 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

Hand Writing: Solving the Right Problem

Contributing Editor David J. Hand writes: statements to the effect that the choice works by transforming the observed values to George Box once said “You have a big should depend on how the data are distrib- ranks and calculating the Pearson coefficient approximation and a small approximation. uted, and that the mean is a better measure of the ranked data. That’s equivalent to The big approximation is your approximation of “location” than the median for symmetric transforming the raw data to uniform to the problem you want to solve. The small distributions, while otherwise the median scores, before applying the Pearson measure. approximation is involved in getting the should be used. But the choice of a uniform distribution solution to the approximate problem.” In a But this is an oversimplification—and here is arbitrary—or at least, in almost all similar vein, John Tukey said “Far better an you will note that that description of which the applications I have encountered, it’s approximate answer to the right question, measure is appropriate made no reference at arbitrary. No-one has told me why, for their which is often vague, than anexact answer all to the question being asked. problem, they believed uniform scores were to the wrong question, which can always be If, as an employer, I choose the remu- appropriate, rather than, for example, normal made precise.” neration of new recruits randomly from a scores, or scores derived from some other I’ve never been entirely convinced by pronouncedly skewed distribution of salaries, distribution. Unfortunately, the derived value these statements. They have the ring of nice then the average which will interest me is of the Pearson coefficient will depend on soundbites (especially when polished up, for the mean of the distribution: those receiving the chosen distribution. What this means example to “An approximate answer to the large salaries will be compensated for by is that the value of the coefficient is using right question is worth a great deal more than the larger number receiving small salaries, arbitrary “information” that the researcher a precise answer to the wrong question”) but and my total wage bill is the product of has injected into the calculation, not merely it seems to me that the critical thing is the the number of employees and their mean the information in the data. accuracy of both approximations. salary. In contrast, a potential new recruit To overcome this, we need to step back Nonetheless, the underlying point, that considering joining the firm will be interested and think more carefully about how the people should think carefully about the in the median salary. To her the mean is of invariance to monotonic transformations of problem they actually want to solve, holds little interest, since she is very likely to receive the two variables is achieved. The Spearman good. Researchers should not expend energy substantially less than that. coefficient does it by mapping to a standard answering the “wrong question” unless they The distribution has the same shape representation, but an alternative approach are confident that it is near enough to the in each case, but the appropriate average would be to base one’s measure solely on the right one. depends on what one wants to know. ordinal properties of the data. A measure A particularly simple example of this is I picked the mean/median example which does this is the Kendall coefficient. whether to use the mean or the median to because it was the simplest example I could This measure thus sidesteps the intrinsic arbi- summarise a set of data. Since these statistics think of, but the principle is ubiquitous: the trariness implicit in the Spearman measure. are different, they naturally have different choice of statistical method depends on the Again the two measures are different, with properties. Indeed, as all statisticians will question you want to answer. different properties, and which is appropriate know it’s possible for one of two groups to Correlation coefficients are another depends on what you want to know. have a higher mean but lower median than very widely used basic summary statistic. As Box, Tukey, and other great statis- the other group. Changes in the extreme The Pearson product-moment coefficient ticians have pointed out, it is critical in a values will impact the mean, but not the is known to be a measure of the strength statistical analysis to make sure you solve the median. So, for example, one can make the of linear relationship. Often, however, one right problem. sample mean as large as one likes by increas- wants a weaker measure of relationship— ing the single largest value enough, while the perhaps merely a measure of strength David Hand is Senior Research Investigator and median remains unchanged. If the world’s of monotonic relationship. Correlation Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial richest person’s wealth increases sufficiently coefficients for this are sometimes called College, London, and Chief Scientific Advisor to Winton while everyone else’s declines, the mean nonparametric measures of correlation, and Capital Management. He serves on the Board of the wealth goes up, while the median wealth they are invariant to monotonic increasing UK Statistics Authority. He is a Fellow of the British decreases. transformations of the two variables involved. Academy, and a recipient of the RSS Guy Medal. He was For such reasons, it’s common to see The Spearman coefficient is an example. This made OBE for services to research and innovation. April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 7

Student Puzzle Corner 3

Let P, Q be two randomly chosen points on the surface of the Earth The Student Puzzle Corner contains one and let D be the Euclidean distance between P and Q. Assuming or two problems in statistics or proba- that Earth is a perfect sphere of radius 3960 miles, find the exact bility. Sometimes, solving the problems value of E(D). Notice that we are not asking for E(D2), but E(D) itself. may require a literature search. Current student members of the Airplanes generally travel approximately along the geodesic IMS are invited to submit solutions distance, because to take the path corresponding to the Euclidean electronically (to [email protected] distance, one has to go through the interior of the Earth. It is with subject “Student Puzzle Corner”). Deadline May 1, 2014. possible to find how how much larger the geodesic The names and affiliations of (up to) distance is than the Euclidean distance on the the first 10 student members to submit average. correct solutions, and the answer(s) to the problem(s), will be published in the We will publish the names and affiliations of next issue of the Bulletin. (up to) the first 10 respondents who send a The Editor’s decision is final. correct solution.

Last issue’s Student Puzzle: Last issue’s correct answer In a house, there are six cuckoo clocks. They Anirban DasGupta, IMS Bulletin Editor, writes: are showing these times 9:44, 9:46, 9:34, 9:45, Tengyuan Liang at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 8:57 and 9:44. We want to guess the correct sent the correct value of μ (though without sending any work). time μ. We have to model the problem. Here Note that the correct value just refers to the μ that was used to generate the six data values. is how the six data values were generated. A Of course, μ cannot be exactly estimated, but we can formulate the estimation problem. subset of the six observations were generated Let χ = {9.73, 9.77, 9.57, 9.75, 8.95, 9.73} denote the set of sample values. Let f0 denote the from a normal distribution with mean μ normal density with mean µ and standard deviation 1/30 andf 1 the standard Cauchy density 1 and standard deviation /30 (meaning 2 with median at µ. We are not told how many or which of the sample values are from f0. Let c minutes); the rest of the six observations were A χ consist of the observations from f0, and A the observations from f1; there are 64 such generated from a Cauchy distribution with subsets of χ. We could try to maximize the likelihood function parameters μ and 1. Thus, we think that a Πx∈A f0 (x |μ) × Πx∈Ac f1 (x |μ) subset of the cuckoo clocks have become over A and μ. This is a formal attack. An informal attack would be to treat it as a problem a bit inaccurate, and the others have gone in simple data analysis, and conclude that the clocks showing the times 9:34 and 8:57 have completely erratic. You are not told how become completely unreliable and treat the other four as a Gaussian sample. Both approaches many and which data values came from the lead to a value of μ close to 9:45, and then you guess that probably 9:45 was used for the normal distribution. Can you guess μ? Give simulation purpose. your answer in hours and minutes; e.g., 10.5 will mean 10:30. Are you on Facebook? We are! Search “IMSTATI” in Facebook 8 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

Meet the Candidates for 2014 IMS Council

President-Elect Nominee (one candidate)

Richard Davis • Associate Editor, Bernoulli (Jan ’07–Dec ’08) Howard Levene Professor and Chair of • Editor, Statistical Science (Jan ’08–Dec ’10) Statistics, Columbia University • Associate Editor, Stochastic Processes and Their Applications ( Jan Education: 1974 BA Mathematics, ’93–Jan ’96, Mar ’08–Jan ’10) University of California at San Diego; 1979 • Business and Economics Statistics Section, Chair-elect (2009), PhD Mathematics, University of California Chair (2010) at San Diego • Co-organizer (with James Stock, Ruey Tsay, and Serena Ng) Research Interests NBER/NSF Workshops in Time Series (2001– ) • Time series analysis Brief Statement • Extreme value for stationary sequence and space-time processes I am honored to have the opportunity to stand for election as • Spatial statistics with application to environmental data president-elect of IMS. With many areas in our field currently in the • Applied probability public eye, these are heady and exciting times for probabilists and stat- Previous Service to the Profession isticians. Fortunately, IMS is well positioned to provide timely fora to • IMS Council (2013– ) address the challenges of an expanding and changing research land- • Joint IMS/Bernoulli Society Publications Management scape and must do so while maintaining the high quality expected Committee (Jan ’14– ) of IMS sponsored activities. It is also crucial for IMS to be proactive • Editor-in-Chief, Bernoulli (Jan ’10–Dec ’12) in expanding its outreach and support of young researchers—these • Associate Editor, Annals of Applied Probability (Jan ’94–Jan ’00) actions help build a more vibrant and engaged community. • Associate Editor, Extremes (Jan ’07–) w http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~rdavis/

Council Nominees (12 candidates for six positions)

Marek Biskup • Frequent conference organizer (Oberwolfach, Banff, IPAM, Professor, Department of Mathematics, probability sessions at AMS meetings, etc) UCLA • Steering committee member for the RGLIS program at the Education: PhD Mathematics, University of European Science Foundation Nijmegen, The Netherlands Brief Statement Research Interests The IMS should maintain its indispensable role in providing outlets Probability related to statistical mechanics for high-quality publications and making them widely accessible at including: affordable price. Further expansion should be considered by inviting • Phase transitions and critical phenomena other valuable probability/statistics journals under the IMS umbrella. • Random motions in random media The IMS should also try to capitalize on a recent influx of motivated • Homogenization and heat-kernel estimates young researchers into probability. This could be done by offering a • Percolation shelter, and providing support within means, for young-researcher • Extrema of Gaussian processes symposia and/or summer schools around the world. Finally, the • Random Schroedinger operators IMS is primarily a meeting ground for probabilists and statisticians Previous Service to the Profession but it should also constantly develop further means of outreach to • Associate Editor, Electronic Journal of Probability and Electronic other areas of mathematics, computer science and applied sciences. If Communications in Probability, 2007–present elected, I will do my best to represent the probability community in • Summer school organizer (Prague schools on statistical mechan- these endeavors. ics) and lecturer (e.g. 2007 Park City Summer School) w http://www.math.ucla.edu/~biskup/ April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 9

Peter Bühlmann Professor, Seminar for Statistics, • Associate Editor, The Electronic Journal of Statistics, since 2007 Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich • Associate Editor, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (JRSS)-B Education: Ph.D. Mathematics (Statistics), (2012–2014) ETH Zurich 1993 • Associate Editor, The Annals of Applied Statistics (2011–2012) Research Interests • Associate Editor, The International Journal of Biostatistics, • High-dimensional statistics Berkeley Press (2007–2012) • Computational statistics and machine learning • Associate Editor, The Annals of Statistics (2007–2010) • Statistics in life sciences • Program leader for the 2013–2014 SAMSI Program on Low- Previous Service to the Profession dimensional Structure in High-dimensional Systems (LDHD) • Annals of Statistics, Co-Editor 2010–2012 • IMS representative for the COPSS F.N. David Award committee, • Annals of Statistics, Assoc. Editor 2005–2009 2014–2018 • Journal of Machine Learning Research, Editorial Board 2001–2009 Brief Statement • Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, Assoc. Editor If elected, my efforts in the IMS council will be directed towards 2004–2007 activities that will promote the new wave of mathematical statistics • Biometrical Journal, Assoc. Editor 2004–2009 that is rapidly developing in response to emerging applications of Brief Statement unprecedented complexity. I view training the next generation of stat- I like IMS very much: it is a broad-minded society for statistics, isticians in this spirit as key for statistics as a discipline to maintain a probability theory, and interdisciplinary applications. If elected to the leading role in sciences. I will work on developing new IMS initiatives council, I would contribute towards maintaining this broad-minded that can make this happen. spirit of the society and opening new connections with other fields w https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/fb238/ from e.g. computer science, mathematics, natural and social sciences. To achieve these goals, the current high quality of IMS publications and conferences is of utmost importance for outstanding commu- Sourav Chatterjee nication of science within and across fields, and IMS’s engagement Professor, Statistics and Mathematics, in education and training of young researchers worldwide should be Stanford University further strengthened. Education: Ph.D. from Stanford University w http://stat.ethz.ch/~buhlmann/ in 2005 Research Interests • Probability theory Florentina Bunea • Mathematical statistics Professor of Statistical Science, Previous Service to the Profession Department of Statistical Science, Cornell Served on the editorial boards for: Annals of Probability, Probability University Theory and Related Fields, Annales de l’Institut Henri Poincaré, Education: MS in Mathematics, University Sankhya of Bucharest, 1991; Ph.D. in Statistics, Brief Statement University of Washington, Seattle, 2000 I will be honored to serve as a member of the council, if elected. I Research Interests will be particularly interested in forwarding the interests of young • High dimensional parametric and semi-parametric inference researchers, because I have personal experience in benefitting from the • Model selection and aggregation IMS’s commendable role in supporting young people at the beginning • High dimensional matrix modeling and inference stages of their career. There are very few academic institutions that • Statistical theory play this role with as much sincerity. I will also try to forward the Previous Service to the Profession interests of the probability community, because that is where I • Series Co-Editor, Monographs on Statistics and Applied Probability, primarily belong. (The Green Series), Chapman & Hall CRC, since 2009 w http://statweb.stanford.edu/~souravc/ • Associate Editor, JASA, since 2011 • Associate Editor, Bernoulli, since 2010 Continues on next page 10 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

Frank Den Hollander • Editor: Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference (2012– ) Prof. Dr., Mathematical Institute, Leiden • Editor: Stat (2012– ) University, The Netherlands • Associate Editor: Annals of Statistics (1995–2007, 2011– ) Education: MSc 1980 Theoretical Physics; • Associate Editor: Bernoulli (2013– ) PhD 1985 Mathematical Physics • Associate Editor: International Statistical Review (2011– ) Research Interests • Associate Editor: Journal of the American Statistical Association • Probability Theory (2011– ) • Statistical Physics • Associate Editor: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B • Ergodic Theory (2007– ) • Population Genetics • Associate Editor: Test (2000– ) Previous Service to the Profession • Associate Editor: Sankhya (2004– ) • Scientific Director of EURANDOM (2000–2005) • Associate Editor: ESAIM: Probability and Statistics (2005– ) • Council of the Bernoulli Society (2003–2007) • Associate Editor: Statistics & Probability Letters (2007– ) • Council of the IMS (2006–2009) • Associate Editor: Statistics & Decisions (2007– ) • Publications Committee of the Bernoulli Society (since 2011) Brief Statement • Advisory Council for Exact Sciences of the Royal Dutch Academy The IMS plays a major role for the development of Probability and of Sciences (since 2011, chair) Statistics in the future. My list of priorities for the work in the council • Mathematics Advisory Council of Elsevier (since 2012) is: • Served on 10 editorial boards 1) Promotion of young researchers. Brief Statement 2) Improving the collaboration between probability and statistics. Internationalisation continues to be a key challenge for mathematics. 3) Improving the quality of refereeing. A viable model for open access, combined with a refereeing system 4) Supporting interactions between IMS and other scientific that works efficiently and does justice to high-quality papers, need our organisation in mathematics—in particular SIAM. attention as well. Over the years I have been active both within the 5) Improving the visibility of our field to other disciplines, where Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Bernoulli Society, trying massive and new data structures require the development of new to help our profession wherever I can. The stochastic sciences are methodology and theory. flourishing. This offers unique possibilities for the future, especially 6) Support of open access electronic publishing. close interaction with other sciences. w http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/mathematik3/en/dette.html w http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/~denholla/ Geoffrey Grimmett Holger Dette Professor of Mathematical Statistics, Professor, Department of Mathematics, Statistical Laboratory, University of Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany Cambridge Education: PhD, 1989, Universität Education: BA (1971), MSc (1972), MA Hannover, Germany; Habilitation, 1992; (1974), DPhil (1974), DSc (2010), Oxford Universität Göttingen, Germany University Research Interests Research Interests • Design of experiments • Probability theory • Nonparametric regression • Stochastic processes on graphs • Time series, locally stationary processes • Percolation and disordered systems • Random matrices Previous Service to the Profession • Matrix measures • Membership of numerous IMS committees including Council • Birth and death processes (2007–10) • Approximation theory and orthogonal polynomials • AE, Annals of Probability (1988–94) Previous Service to the Profession • Managing Editor, Probability Surveys (2009–11) • Editor: Metrika (2008–2012) • Managing Editor, Probability Theory and Related Fields (2000–05) April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 11

Brief Statement: The IMS has a very special role as a beacon Research Interests publisher of top-rank and widely accessible journals and books in • Probability theory, stochastic processes and their applications probability and statistics. I support activities in North America and • Large deviations further afield that support our community worldwide, and I will take • Concentration of measure some interest in matters of governance. • Gibbs measures and phase transitions w http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~grg/ • Stochastic analysis • Stochastic networks and their scaling limits Previous Service to the Profession Davy Paindaveine • Editorial Board of: Annals of Probability (2006–2012), Annals of Professor of Statistics, ECARES and Applied Probability (2009–present), Mathematics of Operations Department of Mathematics, Université Research (2007–present), Queueing Systems (2008–present), libre de Bruxelles Stochastic Analysis and Applications (2002–2012) Education: MA in Mathematics, 1998, • IMS Committee on Nominations, Member (2011–2013) Université libre de Bruxelles; Ph.D. in • IMS Membership Committee (2007) Statistics, 2002, Université libre de Bruxelles • Bernoulli Society Nominations Committee, Member (2014– ) Research Interests • Prize Committees: (i) George Nicholson Prize (2013 member; • Nonparametric Statistics 2014 Chair); (ii) Erlang Prize of the Applied Probability • Robust inference Society(2014– ) • Asymptotic Statistics • AMS (American Mathematical Society) Eastern Section Program • Multivariate analysis Committee, Member 2012, Chair 2013 • High-dimensional data • Organizer/Co-Organizer of several international Conferences, Previous Service to the Profession including (i) Computational Challenges in Probability, semester • Co-Editor-in-Chief, Statistics and Probability Letters, since 2014 program at ICERM, Providence, RI (Fall ’12) (ii) INFORMS • Associate Editor, Annals of Statistics: since 2013 Applied Probability Conference (Stockholm, Sweden, July • Associate Editor, ESAIM Probability and Statistics: since 2013 ’11) (iii) Stochastic Networks Meeting (Newton Institute, • Assoc. Editor, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference: since Cambridge, UK, Mar ’10) (iv) IMI Meeting on Limit Theorems 2012 in Probability, Bangalore India (Jan ’13) • Associate Editor, Statistica Sinica: since 2011 • Scientific Committee of various Conference Series, including (i) • Associate Editor, International Statistical Review: since 2011 Committee for the Conferences on Stochastic Processes (2010– ) • Associate Editor, Statistics and Probability Letters: 2010–2013 (ii) Seminar on Stochastic Processes, Long-term member (2014– ) • IMS Committee on New Researchers: 2011–2013 (iii) Stochastic Networks (2008–present) Brief Statement: “The best thing about being a statistician is that • International research panels, including for NSF (National you get to play in everyone’s backyard” (John Tukey). I could not Science Foundation), ERC (European Research Commission), agree more with this point and see this as a further reason to try and INRIA strengthen the links between the IMS and scientific societies in other • Faculty Sponsor AWM (Association for Women in Mathematics) fields. At least as important is to pursue the on-going efforts to make Chapter Division of Applied Math, Brown University the IMS more and more useful and visible to young statisticians. • Outreach Activities, including talks at Rhode Island School of w http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~dpaindav/ Design, Providence, RI Center for Women in Mathematics, Smith College, MLK Elementary School, Providence Girl’s Science Club, Jewish Day School, Pittsburgh Kavita Ramanan Brief Statement: I am honored to have been nominated as a candi- Professor, Applied Mathematics, Brown date for the IMS Council. This is an exciting era for probability and University statistics, with significant advances in both theory and applications. If Education: B.Tech. Chemical Engineering, elected to the council, I would help foster interaction between proba- IIT Mumbai, 1992; MS Applied bility, statistics, and other mathematical and scientific disciplines, and Mathematics, Brown University, 1993; PhD take measures to improve public understanding of the importance of Applied Mathematics, Brown Univ., 1998 these fields. I would strongly encourage meetings and other activities 12 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

that support young researchers from around the world and continue Neerlandica, Statistics and Decisions, PTRF, Indagationes to support the IMS in its mission to maintain the highest standards Mathematicae, JSPI, ALEA. for its publications. • Program chair EMS 2005 Oslo, and BNP10 2015 Rayleigh w http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/ramanan/index.htm • Chair local organizing committee BNP9, and EMS 2015 • Member program and organizing committees of workshops and conferences Jonathan Taylor • Chair European Regional Committee Bernoulli Society Associate Professor, Department of • ISI council member Statistics, Stanford University • President Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Education: B.Sc., McGill University (1997); Research. Ph.D., McGill University (2011) • Member local, European and international scientific councils, Research Interests review panels, nominating committees, governing boards, prize • Geometric methods in statistics committees, including some of IMS. • Smooth stochastic processes • Head Department of Mathematics, VU University Amsterdam • Optimization methods in statistics (consistency, inference, com- Brief Statement: Thanks to the effort of many, IMS publishes the putation) most significant journals and organizes main conferences in our area. • Multiple comparisons problems with dependent data It is attractive that it keeps statistics and probability together in this • Extreme value theory effort, without losing sight of the wider area of statistics. I am more Previous Service to the Profession than happy to serve on the council to help IMS continue to be an • Current Associate Editor for Annals of Statistics, Scandinavian efficient representative of our profession. Journal of Statistics w http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/~avdvaart/ • IMS Nominations Committee Brief Statement: The growth of data-intensive scientific applications and big data in industry has greatly increased the importance of Naisyin Wang probability and statistics to other disciplines. I believe the IMS, as the Professor, Department of Statistics, world’s leading society committed to both probability and statistics, University of Michigan has an important role to play in this outreach. If elected, I am Education: Ph.D. Statistics, Cornell committed to ensuring that probability and statistics’ role in science, University, 1992; M.A. Statistics, Ohio State society and computing continues to grow. I am also committed to University, 1987; B.S. Mathematics, National encouraging the continued communication of research between the Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan, 1986 theoretical and applied constituencies within the IMS. Research Interests • Non- and Semiparametric Models • Functional and Longitudinal Data Analysis Aad van der Vaart • Weighting and Transformation in Regression Professor of Stochastics, Mathematical • Measurement Error and Mixture Modeling Institute, Leiden University, Netherlands • Interdisciplinary Research on Nutrition and Dietary Studies Education: B.S. Psychology, Leiden Previous Service to the Profession University,1983; M.S. Mathematics, Leiden • Co-Chair Editor, Statistica Sinica, 2011-current University, 1983; Ph.D. Mathematics, Leiden • Associate Editor, JASA, 2008-2012, 2005-2006 University, 1987 • Associate Editor, Biostatistics, 2008-2011 Research Interests • Associate Editor, Statistics and Its Interface, 2008-2011 • Semiparametric statistics • Co-Editor, Biometrics, 2006-2008 • Bayesian statistics • Editor, Statistical Science, 2005-2006 • Empirical processes • Associate Editor, Biometrics, 1997-2006 • Genomics, genetics, imaging, finance • President, International Chinese Statistical Association, 2011 Previous Service to the Profession • PIMS nomination committee, 2011-2012 • Associate editor Annals of Statistics, ESAIM, Statistica • ASA Wilks Memorial Medal Committee, 2011-2013 April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 13

• COPSS Fisher Lecture Committee, 2003–2006 (Chair, 2006) younger researchers. If elected, I would work with other council mem- • IMS Program Chair, 2003 IMS–WNAR Meeting bers to identify means that promote the recognition of importance of Brief Statement: It is an honor to be given this opportunity to serve such support in conducting interdisciplinary research. IMS. We are in an era of big data, which provides excitements as well w http://dept.stat.lsa.umich.edu/~nwangaa/ as challenges. The concepts of building strong applications on the backbone of theoretical statistics/probability seem to be in danger IMS elections close on May 30, of being lost in this fast-paste world, particularly among some of our 2014: don’t forget to vote!

Recent papers Probability Surveys Probability Surveys publishes survey articles in theoretical and applied probability. Access papers at http://www.i-journals.org/ps/

Volume 10, 2013 Planar percolation with a glimpse of Schramm–Loewner evolution Vincent Beffara and Hugo Duminil-Copin: 1-50 On spectral methods for variance based sensitivity analysis Alen Alexanderian: 51-68 Self-normalized limit theorems: A survey Qi-Man Shao and Qiying Wang: 69-93 Volume 11, 2014 Integrable probability: From representation theory to Macdonald processes Alexei Borodin and Leonid Petrov: 1-58

Stochastic Systems Focusing on the interface of applied probability and operations research, Stochastic Systems is the flagship journal of the INFORMS Applied Probability Society and is published through a cooperative agreement between INFORMS and the IMS. Access papers at http://www.i-journals.org/ssy/

Volume 3, issue 1, 2013 Some new results on information percolation Alain Bélanger and Gaston Giroux: 1-10 Stability of a stochastic model for demand-response Jean-Yves Le Boudec and Dan-Cristian Tomozei: 11-37 On the convergence of simulation-based iterative methods for solving singular linear systems Mengdi Wang and Dimitri P. Bertsekas: 38-95 Many-server queues with customer abandonment: Numerical analysis of their diffusion model Shuangchi He and Jim Dai: 96-146 Directed random graphs with given degree distributions Ningyuan Chen and Mariana Olvera-Cravioto: 147-186 Optimal paths in large deviations of symmetric reflected Brownian motion in the octant Ziyu Liang and John J. Hasenbein: 187-229 A linear response bandit problem Alexander Goldenshluger and Assaf Zeevi: 230-261 Fluid limits for overloaded multiclass FIFO single-server queues with general abandonment Otis B. Jennings and Amber L. Puha: 262-321 Volume 3, issue 2, 2013 Tuning approximate dynamic programming policies for ambulance redeployment via direct search Matthew S. Maxwell, Shane G. Henderson and Huseyin Topaloglu: 322-361 Learning loosely connected Markov random fields Rui Wu, R. Srikant and Jian Ni: 362-404 The supermarket game Jiaming Xu and Bruce Hajek: 405-441 Brownian inventory models with convex holding cost, Part 1: Average-optimal controls Jim Dai and Dacheng Yao: 442-499 Brownian inventory models with convex holding cost, Part 2: Discount-optimal controls Jim Dai and Dacheng Yao: 500-573 Two coupled Lévy queues with independent input Je vgenijs Ivanovs and Onno Boxma: 574-590 Second order corrections for the limits of normalized ruin times in the presence of heavy tails Dominik Kortschak and Søren Asmussen: 591-633 ANNUAL REVIEWS It’s about time. Your time. It’s time well spent.

New in 2014 from Annual Reviews: Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application Volume 1 • Online January 2014 • http://statistics.annualreviews.org Editor: Stephen E. Fienberg, Carnegie Mellon University Associate Editors: Nancy Reid, University of Toronto and Stephen M. Stigler, University of Chicago The Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application informs statisticians, quantitative methodologists, and users of statistics about major methodological advances and the computational tools that allow for their implementation. It includes developments in the fi eld of statistics, including theoretical statistical underpinnings of new methodology, as well as developments in specifi c application domains such as biostatistics and bioinformatics, economics, machine learning, psychology, sociology, and aspects of the physical sciences.

Complimentary online access to the fi rst volume will be available until January 2015.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: • What Is Statistics? Stephen E. Fienberg • Next-Generation Statistical Genetics: Modeling, Penalization, • A Systematic Statistical Approach to Evaluating Evidence and Optimization in High-Dimensional Data, Kenneth Lange, from Observational Studies, David Madigan, Paul E. Stang, Jeanette C. Papp, Janet S. Sinsheimer, Eric M. Sobel Jesse A. Berlin, Martijn Schuemie, J. Marc Overhage, • Breaking Bad: Two Decades of Life-Course Data Analysis Marc A. Suchard, Bill Dumouchel, Abraham G. Hartzema, in Criminology, Developmental Psychology, and Beyond, Patrick B. Ryan Elena A. Erosheva, Ross L. Matsueda, Donatello Telesca • The Role of Statistics in the Discovery of a Higgs Boson, • Event History Analysis, Niels Keiding David A. van Dyk • Statistical Evaluation of Forensic DNA Profi le Evidence, • Brain Imaging Analysis, F. DuBois Bowman Christopher D. Steele, David J. Balding • Statistics and Climate, Peter Guttorp • Using League Table Rankings in Public Policy Formation: • Climate Simulators and Climate Projections, Jonathan Rougier, Statistical Issues, Harvey Goldstein Michael Goldstein • Statistical Ecology, Ruth King • Probabilistic Forecasting, Tilmann Gneiting, Matthias Katzfuss • Estimating the Number of Species in Microbial Diversity • Bayesian Computational Tools, Christian P. Robert Studies, John Bunge, Amy Willis, Fiona Walsh • Bayesian Computation Via Markov Chain Monte Carlo, • Dynamic Treatment Regimes, Bibhas Chakraborty, Radu V. Craiu, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal Susan A. Murphy • Build, Compute, Critique, Repeat: Data Analysis with Latent • Statistics and Related Topics in Single-Molecule Biophysics, Variable Models, David M. Blei Hong Qian, S.C. Kou • Structured Regularizers for High-Dimensional Problems: • Statistics and Quantitative Risk Management for Banking Statistical and Computational Issues, Martin J. Wainwright and Insurance, Paul Embrechts, Marius Hofert • High-Dimensional Statistics with a View Toward Applications in Biology, Peter Bühlmann, Markus Kalisch, Lukas Meier

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ANNUAL REVIEWS | www.annualreviews.org | Connect With Our Experts

Tel: 800.523.8635 (US/CAN) | Tel: 650.493.4400 | Fax: 650.424.0910 | Email: [email protected] April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 15

COPSS publishes 50th anniversary volume

COPSS 50th Anniversary Volume: Past, Present and Future of Statistical Science Co-editors: Xihong Lin, Christian Genest, David Banks, Geert Molenberghs, David Scott, and Jane-Ling Wang This book entitled Past, Present and Future of Statistical Science was commissioned in 2013 by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) to celebrate both its 50th anniversary and the International Year of Statistics. Hard copies will be published in April, 2014 by Chapman & Hall/CRC (use discount code AJL01 to obtain a 20% discount on the list price). With the publisher’s authorization, an elec- tronic version is freely available at www.copss.org. COPSS consists of five member societies: the American Statistical Association (ASA), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), the Statistical Society of Canada/Société statistique du Canada (SSC), and the Eastern and Western North American Regions of the International Biometric Society (ENAR and WNAR). COPSS is best known for sponsoring prestigious awards given each year at the Joint Statistical Meetings. The 50 contributors to this volume are all past winners of at least one of the awards sponsored by COPSS: the R.A. Fisher Lectureship Award, the Presidents’ Award, the George W. Snedecor Award, the Elizabeth L. Scott Award, and the F.N. David Award. A list of authors can be found at the end of each article. This volume is not only about statistics and science, but also about people and their passion for discovery. It contains expository articles by distinguished authors on a broad spectrum of topics of interest in statistical education, research, and applications. Many of these articles are accessible not only to professional statisticians and graduate students, but also to undergraduates interested in pursuing statistics as a career, and to all those who use statistics in solving real-world problems. Topics include reminiscences and personal reflections on statistical careers, perspectives on the field and profession, thoughts on the discipline and the future of statistical science, as well as advice for young statisticians. A consistent theme of all the articles is the passion for statistics enthusiastically shared by the authors. Their success stories inspire, give a sense of statistics as a discipline, and provide a taste of the exhilaration of discovery, success, and professional accomplishment. This volume has five parts. In Part I, Ingram Olkin gives a brief overview of the 50-year history of COPSS. Part II consists of 11 articles by authors who reflect on their own careers and the lessons they learned. Part III has nine articles describing the challenges of statistical science in science and society, statistical education, equity and diversity in statistics, and the opportunities of statistical science in the era of big data science. Part IV has of 24 articles on past developments, current challenges, and future opportunities for statistics, in which authors provide insight on past developments, current challenges, and future opportunities in statistical science. Part V has seven articles, in which senior statisticians share their experience and provide career advice for the next generation. This book project was supported by COPSS and its member societies, as well as several of COPSS friend societies including the International Chinese Statistical Society (ICSA), the International Indian Statistical Association (IISA), and the Korean International Statistical Society (KISS), and substantial in-kind support provided by the Institut des sciences mathématiques du Québec. We hope that this volume will inspire you and help you develop the same passion for statistics that we share with the authors. Happy reading! 16 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

Rao Prize Conference: report

Runze Li writes: The Penn State Department of Statistics held the 2013 Rao Prize Conference on October 5, 2013 to honor the 2013 Rao Prize winner Herman Chernoff, Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and of Statistics at Harvard University, and the 2013 P. R. Krishnaiah lecturer Stephen E. Fienberg, the Maurice Falk University Professor of Statistics and Social Science at Carnegie Mellon University. This conference was co-organized with the 2013 Penn State Bioinformatics and Genomics Retreat. About 200 researchers, including statisticians and biologists, attended this conference. From left to right: Herman Chernoff, Bhargavi Rao, C. R. Rao, Stephen E. Fienberg The conference program consisted of two plenary speakers, five invited speakers, and more than 40 posters by graduate students. The This conference also highlighted the 2013 P. R. Krishnaiah plenary speakers were Chernoff and Fienberg. The invited speakers lecturer, Stephen E. Fienberg. An IMS Fellow, Fienberg is a recipient were Francesca Chiaromonte, a professor of statistics at Penn State; of the COPSS Presidents’ Award, an elected member of the National Jiashun Jin, a professor of statistics at Carnegie Mellon University; Academy of Sciences, an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Shaw-Hwa Lo, a professor of statistics at Columbia University; Adam Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Smith, an associate professor of computer science and engineering Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Statistical at Penn State University; and Tian Zheng, an associate professor of Association and a winner of its Wilks Award. He was IMS president statistics at Columbia University. More information about the confer- in 1999. ence is online at http://www.stat.psu.edu/~rli/raoprize2013.html. The C. R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize was established to honor and One of the highlights of the conference was the awarding of the recognize outstanding and influential innovations in the theory and 2013 Rao Prize to Herman Chernoff. Chernoff is an elected Fellow practice of mathematical statistics, international leadership in direct- of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an elected member of ing statistics research, and pioneering contributions by a recognized the National Academy of Sciences, a winner of the Townsend Harris leader in the field of statistics (see the call for nominations in the box Medal and the Samuel S. Wilks Award, and a fellow of the IMS and on page 17). The Krishnaiah lectureship, which began as the P. R. the American Statistical Association. He was the president of the Krishnaiah visiting scholars program in 1992, honors the memory of IMS in 1968. He has received honorary doctorates from the Ohio P. R. Krishnaiah by inviting outstanding researchers in statistics to State University; the Technion, Israel’s Institute of Technology; La deliver lectures at Penn State. More details are on the web at http:// Sapienza, the University of Rome; and the University of Athens. stat.psu.edu/information/prizes-and-memorial-lectures

Below: Poster session during lunch break April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 17

Calls for Nominations

Gweneth Humphreys Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Women in Mathematics The C.R. and Bhargavi Rao Prize was Open to all regardless of nationality and citizenship established to honor and recognize Nomination deadline: April 30, 2014 outstanding and influential innova- The Executive Committee of the Association for Women in Mathematics established a prize tions in the theory and practice of in memory of M. Gweneth Humphreys to recognize outstanding mentorship activities. This mathematical statistics, international prize is awarded annually to a mathematics teacher (female or male) who has encouraged leadership in directing statistical female undergraduate students to pursue mathematical careers and/or the study of mathemat- research, and pioneering contribu- ics at the graduate level. The recipient will receive a cash prize and honorary plaque and will be tions by a recognized leader in the featured in an article in the AWM Newsletter. The award is open to all regardless of nationality field of statistics. The Rao Prize is and citizenship. Nominees must be living at the time of their nomination. awarded in odd-numbered years by The award will be presented at the Joint Prize Session at the Joint Mathematics Meetings the Department of Statistics at Penn every January. State University to a nominee selected The nomination should include: by the members of the Rao Prize • a one- to three-page letter of nomination highlighting the exceptional contributions of Committee. the candidate to be recognized; the name, position, institution, address, phone, and e-mail Nominations for the 2015 Rao Prize address of the nominee and the nominator should be included in the cover letter; should be submitted by July 1, 2014 • a list of female students mentored by the nominee during their undergraduate years, with a to Dr. Hunter at [email protected]. brief account of their post-baccalaureate mathematical careers and/or graduate study in the edu by email. Candidates nominated mathematical sciences; in previous years will be considered. • supporting letters from colleagues and/or students; at least one letter from a current or Nominations should include a letter former student of the candidate must be included. describing the nominee’s outstand- • the nominee’s vita. ing contributions to leadership and Nomination materials for this award should be compiled into one PDF file and submitted research in statistics, a current curric- online at https://www.mathprograms.org/db/programs/277. ulum vita, and two supporting letters. Louise Hay Award for Contribution to Mathematics Education The award recipient will receive a medal, a cash prize, and an invitation Awarded to women contributing to mathematics education to visit Penn State to give a talk. See Nomination deadline: April 30, 2014 http://stat.psu.edu/information/prizes- The Executive Committee of the Association for Women in Mathematics established the and-memorial-lectures/c.-r.-rao-prize- Louise Hay Award for Contributions to Mathematics Education, awarded to a woman at for-outstanding-research-in-statistics the Joint Prize Session at the Joint Mathematics Meetings every January. The purpose of this for additional details. award is to recognize outstanding achievements in any area of mathematics education, to be interpreted in the broadest possible sense. While Louise Hay was widely recognized for her contributions to mathematical logic and for her strong leadership, her devotion to students and her lifelong commitment to nurturing the talent of young women and men secure her reputation as a consummate educator. The annual presentation of this award is intended to highlight the importance of mathematics education and to evoke the memory of all that Hay exemplified as a teacher, scholar, administrator, and human being. The nomination should include: • a one- to three-page letter of nomination highlighting the exceptional contributions of the candidate to be recognized; • a curriculum vitae of the candidate not to exceed three pages and; • three letters supporting the nomination. It is strongly recommended that the letters represent a range of constituents affected by the nomi- nee’s work. Nomination materials for this award should be compiled into one PDF file and submitted online athttps://www.mathprograms.org/db/ programs/276. Questions? Call 703-934-0163 x215 or email [email protected]. 18 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

Calls for Nominations

The Thirteenth Annual Janet L. Norwood Award for Outstanding The Emanuel and Carol Parzen Prize for Statistical Innovation Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical Sciences The Department of Statistics at Texas A&M University invites The Section on Statistical Genetics and the Department of nominations for the Emanuel and Carol Parzen Prize for Statistical Biostatistics in the School of Public Health, University of Alabama Innovation. To promote the dissemination of statistical innovation, at Birmingham (UAB) are pleased to request nominations for the Emanuel and Carol Parzen Prize for Statistical Innovation is the Thirteenth Annual Janet L. Norwood Award for Outstanding awarded in even numbered years to a North American statistician Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical Sciences. The award whose outstanding research contributions include innovations that will be conferred on September 10, 2014. The award recipient will have had impact on practice and whose PhD degree is at least 25 years be invited to deliver a lecture at the UAB award ceremony, and will old. receive all expenses, the award, and a $5,000 prize. The Parzen Prize is awarded by the Department of Statistics at Eligible individuals are women who have completed their terminal Texas A&M University and is selected by the members of the Parzen degree, have made extraordinary contributions and have an outstand- Prize Committee (consisting of three internal faculty members and ing record of service to the statistical sciences, with an emphasis on two external faculty members). The prize consists of an honorarium both their own scholarship and on teaching and leadership of the field of $1000 and travel to College Station, TX, to present a lecture at the in general and of women in particular and who, if selected, are willing Prize Ceremony. to deliver a lecture at the award ceremony. Nominations for the 2014 Parzen Prize should include a letter For additional details about the award, please visit our website at describing the nominee’s outstanding contributions to high impact http://www.soph.uab.edu/ssg/norwoodaward/aboutaward. innovative research in statistics, a current curriculum vita, and two How to nominate: Please send a full curriculum vitae accompa- supporting letters. Nominations should be submitted by August 15, nied by a letter of not more than two pages describing the nature of 2014 to the Chair of the 2014 Parzen Prize Committee: the candidate’s contributions. Contributions may be in the area of Professor Thomas Wehrly development and evaluation of statistical methods, teaching of statis- Department of Statistics tics, application of statistics, or any other activity that can arguably be Texas A&M University said to have advanced the field of statistical science. Self-nominations TAMU 3143 are acceptable. College Station Texas 77843-3143 Please send nominations to: David B. Allison, PhD, Distinguished Previous Parzen Prize Winners: Professor, Quetelet Endowed Professor of Public Health, Associate 1994 Grace Wahba, University of Wisconsin Dean for Science; Director, Office of Energetics; Director, Nutrition 1996 Donald P. Rubin, Harvard University Obesity Research Center e [email protected] 1998 Bradley Efron, Stanford University Deadline for receipt of nominations is Friday June 27, 2014. 2000 C.R. Rao, Pennsylvania State University Electronic submissions of nominations are encouraged. The winner 2002 David R. Brillinger, University of California, Berkeley will be announced by Mon 7/7/2014. 2004 Jerome H. Friedman, Stanford University Previous Recipients 2006 Alan Gelfand, Duke University 2002 Jane F. Gentleman, NCHS & VP ASA 2008 Nancy Reid, University of Toronto 2003 Nan M. Laird, Harvard Marvin Zelen, Harvard University 2004 Alice S. Whittemore, Stanford 2010 Roger Koenker, University of Illinois 2005 Clarice R. Weinberg, NIEHS Biostatistics Branch Chief 2012 Adrian Raftery, University of Washington 2006 Janet Turk Wittes, Statistics Collaborative Inc. 2007 Marie Davidian, NC State For more information on the Parzen Prize, please visit our website at 2008 Xihong Lin, Harvard http://www.stat.tamu.edu/events/parzenprize/index.html. 2009 Nancy Geller, NHLBI Office of Biostatistics Research. 2010 L. Adrienne Cupples, Boston University 2011 Lynne Billard, University of Georgia 2012 Nancy Flournoy, University of Missouri 2013 Kathryn Roeder, Carnegie Mellon University April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 19

XL-Files: My Valentine’s Escape

and quantum cryptography. The fact that those who have stronger perceptions?” the only phrase involving quantum that I My intention should be obvious. Instead had some understanding of is “quantum of criticizing the non-response bias, I offered leap” did not stop me from wondering the speaker the option of redefining the tar- whether the quantum phenomenon implies get population so the complete-case analysis that the world we live in is fundamentally is relevant. The redefinition here is more than stochastic; and that all the ignorability a post-analysis face-saving strategy, because assumptions about data collections are always for matters such as the impact of perceptions Photo: Harvard University approximate, with differences only being on policies, those who have stronger opinions to what degree. I wondered whether for can and do matter more, and therefore focus- Xiao-Li Meng finds it harder to escape statisticians an effective way to appreciate ing on that sub-population is not a useless statistics than he thought… the uncertainty principle, which says the exercise. I therefore expected the speaker The 2014 AAAS (American Association product of the variance of the position and to gladly take my suggestion, or at least to for the Advancement of Science) Annual the variance of the momentum is bounded acknowledge it as a possible interpretation. Meeting (held February 13–17) has given below by a positive constant, is to express But a good intention is not always well me a new meaning to “Valentine’s Escape”. the Cramér–Rao lower bound (CRLB) received. The speaker’s answer was a quick February is always jam-packed with most of in an analogous form. That is, the CRLB “No,” because, “It is a well accepted practice the 57 graduate program admissions meet- says that the product of the variance of an in sociology to only analyze the complete ings, many starting at 8 a.m. I was therefore unbiased estimator and the variance of the answers, and the response rate is large longing for a “morning escape”, one where score function must be bounded below by 1. enough.” (About 60% of cases were reported I could start my morning haphazardly (not (Of course, the deeper connections between to be complete.) randomly) without any haphazard conse- uncertainty principle and CRLB require The first reason would drive most statisti- quences. Furthermore, for my continuing more space than the margin of any XL-File; cians up the wall. Indeed, I had to repeatedly general education (see May 2013 XL-Files), I but see http://www-isl.stanford.edu/~cover/ remind myself that I was on “escape” in order also felt I needed an intellectual escape from papers/dembo_cover_thomas_91.pdf) to prevent myself from accidentally insulting statistics. Admittedly this was a self-imposed an entire discipline (“Just because everyone The AAAS meeting therefore seemed per- trap—how could any statistician expect does it does not make it right,” was on the fect, but my actual experience was anything to escape from a healthy dose of statistics tip of my tongue). The second reason is but an escape. Cruelly, enticing Scientific by entering the quantum world? So what even more dangerous because using sample/ Symposia sessions such as “The Physics of about a session on effective communication response fraction to control bias is far more Information” started right at 8 a.m.! Worse, between scientific and religious communi- difficult than using sample size to control unlike admissions meetings, no one would ties? At least there I shouldn’t expect myself variance. For example, a biased sampling wait for me (or give a hoot if I was there or to raise any serious issue of a statistical nature, mechanism can easily induce a larger mean- not). Nor could I afford to be late, as I could right? Wrong again, as the session was largely squared error than a simple random sample for a statistical session, for which I usually about a major survey on the perceptions of size 500 can, even if it records 95% the can reasonably impute the missed content these communities have about each other. I population (see, e.g. http://www.stat.harvard. from an abstract. The end result was that I was deeply trapped again the moment the edu/Faculty_Content/meng/COPSS_50.pdf). even lost those weekend “morning escapes” I speaker mentioned that only those who Retrospectively I laughed at myself for normally would have had! responded to all questions were included in trying to escape from statistics. The only way So, did I have better luck escaping the analysis. As this was a session on effective I can forgive myself for this dumb attempt is from statistics, since I deliberately avoided communication, I was rather proud of myself to perform a statistical self-flagellation, that any session with big (signs of ) data? Well, when I framed my question as, “Given it is is, to repeatedly submit papers to The Annals you be the judge. The symposia on “The well-known that those who have stronger of Statistics (until acceptance)! Physics of Information” was really about opinions are more likely to respond, could we quantum physics, quantum computation, interpret that your findings reflect more of 20 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

IMS meetings around the world At a glance:

IMS sponsored meeting UPDATED IMS co-sponsored meeting forthcoming JSM 2014: August 2–7, 2014, Boston, USA 9th World Congress on Probability and IMS Annual w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2014/ Statistics JSM Program Chair: Jean Opsomer, Colorado State University. July 11–15, 2016 Meeting and IMS Invited Program chair: Nancy Reid, University of Toronto. Toronto, Canada JSM dates IMS Contributed Program chair: Bertrand Clark, University of w http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/programs/ Nebraska–Lincoln. scientific/16-17/WC2016/ Key dates: This meeting is jointly sponsored by the March 31–April 17, 2014: Online Abstract Editing Open Bernoulli Society and the IMS. The Scientific 2014 May 1, 2014: Registration & Housing Open (early-bird registration Programme Chair is Alison Etheridge. The IMS Annual Meeting: deadline May 29; housing deadline July 2) Local Chair is Tom Salisbury. Sydney, Australia, May 29, 2014: Early-bird registration deadline July 7–10, 2014 July 2, 2014: Housing deadline ims-asc2014.com

JSM: Boston, MA, Plenary Sessions at JSM 2014 August 2–7, 2014 Stephen Stigler, University of Chicago: ASA President’s Invited Address The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom. Monday, August 4, 4:00 p.m. Nathaniel Schenker, 2014 ASA President: ASA Presidential Address and Founder & Fellows Recognition 2015 Why Your Involvement Matters. Tuesday, August 5, 7:00 p.m. IMS Annual Meeting Sharon Lohr, Westat: Deming Lecture @ JSM: Seattle, WA, Red Beads and Profound Knowledge: Deming and Quality of Education. Tuesday, August 5, 4:00 p.m. August 8–13, 2015 Grace Wahba, University of Wisconsin–Madison: CS OPS Fisher Lecture Positive definite functions, reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces and all that. Wednesday, August 6, 4:00 p.m. 2016 Gareth Roberts, University of Warwick: IMS Blackwell Lecture IMS Annual Meeting: Rao-Blackwellisation for improved Monte carlo for stochastic processes. Sunday, August 3, 4:00 p.m. Mathias Drton, University of Washington: IMS Medallion Lecture Toronto, Canada, What do we know about linear structural equation models? Monday, August 4, 10:30 a.m. July 11–15, 2016 JSM: Chicago, IL, July 30 – August 4, Joint Statistical Meetings dates, 2015–2020 2016 IMS sponsored meeting IMS sponsored meeting IMS Annual Meeting @ JSM 2015: August 8–13, 2015 JSM 2018 2017 Seattle, WA, USA July 28–August 2, 2018 IMS Annual Meeting w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/ Vancouver, Canada @ JSM: Baltimore, MD, July 29 – IMS sponsored meeting IMS sponsored meeting August 3, 2017 JSM 2016: July 30–August 4, 2016, Chicago, IL, USA IMS Annual Meeting @ JSM 2019: w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/ July 27–August 1, 2019, Denver, CO 2018 IMS Annual Meeting: IMS sponsored meeting IMS sponsored meeting TBD IMS Annual Meeting @ JSM 2017: July 29–August 3, 2017 JSM 2020 Baltimore, MD, USA August 1–6, 2020 JSM: Vancouver, w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/ Philadelphia, PA Canada, July 28– August 2, 2018 April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 21

IMS co-sponsored meeting IMS co-sponsored meeting 16th IMS New Researchers Conference UPDATED 2015 European Meeting of Statisticians NEW Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts July 6–10, 2015 July 31–August 2, 2014 Amsterdam, The Netherlands w http://www.stat.harvard.edu/NRC2014/ w http://ems2015.nl/ The 16th IMS New Researchers Conference is an annual meeting The European Meeting of Statisticians (EMS) is the main conference organized under the auspices of the IMS, and jointly sponsored this in statistics and probability in Europe. It is organized in a roughly year by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of Naval two-yearly schedule and is sponsored by the European Regional Research (ONR), and other federal agencies and industry sponsors. Committee of the Bernoulli Society. The program consists of invited The conference is hosted by the Department of Statistics at Harvard and contributed lectures, and posters, addressing a full range of and will be held just prior to the 2014 Joint Statistical Meetings in subjects in statistics and its many applications. Boston. The conference will be held at the campus of the VU University The purpose of the conference is to promote interaction and Amsterdam. The conference will start on Monday, July 6, 2015 and networking among new researchers in probability and statistics. will end on Friday, July 10. Confirmed participants include Edo Airoldi, Stephen Fienberg, Program committee: Marc Hallin (Belgium, chair); Claudia Peter Hall, Michael Jordan, Alan Karr, Jun Liu, Xiao-Li Meng, Susan Klüppelberg (Germany); Susanne Ditlevsen (Denmark); Dominique Murphy, Giovanni Parmigiani, Donald Rubin, Steven Scott and Bin Picard (France); Daniel Hlubinka (Czech Republic); Luigi Yu. Augugliaro (Italy); Geurt Jongbloed (Netherlands); Niels Hansen The application deadline was March 24, 2014. (Denmark, ERC Bernoulli Society) Contact e [email protected] IMS sponsored meeting IMS co-sponsored meeting 2015 IMS-China Conference on Statistics and Probability XIII CLAPEM: Congreso Latino-americano de Probabilidad y Estadística July 1–4, 2015 Matemática Kunming, Yunnan, P. R. China September 22–26, 2014 w http://www.2015imschina.com Cartagena de Indias, Colombia Contact: Qiwei Yao e [email protected] w http://www.clapem.unal.edu.co/ The fifth IMS-China International Conference on Statistics and The Latin American Congress on Probability and Mathematical Probability will be held in Kunming, China, from July 1–4, 2015. Statistics (CLAPEM, by its initials in Spanish) will be holding its Its scientific program will cover a wide range of topics in probability, 13th edition in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, September 22–26, statistics and their related areas. The conference will also provide an 2014. CLAPEM is the largest event in Probability and Statistics of excellent forum for scientific exchanges and for forging new research the Latin American region and has been held every two/three years in collaborations. The conference website contains updated information different countries of the region since 1980. and contact details. The XIII CLAPEM will include three short courses, six plenary conferences, eighteen thematic sessions, contributed talk sessions IMS co-sponsored meeting and poster sessions. Short courses by Bin Yu, Department of The 3rd Workshop on Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, USA; Alison Etheridge, May 9–11, 2014, Atlanta, GA Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, UK; and Paul w http://www2.gsu.edu/~matyiz/2014 workshop/ Embrechts, Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Biostatistics and Bioinformatics have been playing very important Plenary speakers: Gerard Biau, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, roles in scientific research fields in recent years. The goal of the 3rd France; Sourav Chatterjee, Courant Institute of Mathematical workshop is to stimulate research and to foster the interaction of Sciences, USA; Carenne Ludeña, Universidad Central de Venezuela; researchers in Biostatistics & Bioinformatics research areas. The Thomas Mikosch, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; Roberto keynote speaker is Professor Xihong Lin, Harvard University. The Imbuzeiro Oliveira, IMPA, Brazil; and Victor Rivero, CIMAT, workshop will provide the opportunity for faculty and graduate Mexico. The Invited thematic session titles can be found atwww. students to meet the top researchers, identify important directions for clapem.unal.edu.co future research, facilitate research collaborations. The deadlines for abstract submission for the contributed talk and poster sessions, and for applying for financial support, have passed. 22 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3 IMS-ASC 2014 meeting: Sydney, Australia

Australian Statistical Conference in Conjunction with the IMS Annual Meeting July 7–10, 2014, Sydney, Australia w http://www.ims-asc2014.com/ On behalf of the Statistical Society of Australia and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the organising committee invite you to attend the joint Australian Statistical Conference & IMS Annual Meeting, to be held 7–10 July, 2014, at the Australian Technology Park in Sydney, Australia. IMS Keynote Speakers: Wald Lecturer: Thomas G. Kurtz, University of Wisconsin–Madison Neyman Lecturer: Peter Donnelly, University of Oxford Schramm Lecturer: Terry Lyons, University of Oxford Medallion Lecturers: Nina Gantert, Technische Universität München; Martin Hairer, University of Warwick; Timo Seppäläinen, University of Wisconsin–Madison; Matthew Iconic Sydney Stephens, University of Chicago; Harrison Zhou, Yale University ASC Keynote Speakers: James Brown, University of Technology; Adrian Baddeley, Registration is open! CSIRO/University of Western Australia; Sheila Bird, Cambridge University; Terry Speed, You can register now for the meeting University of California/Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research with or without lunches. As an IMS Preliminary Program member you receive a discount on Since abstract submission closed late last year the program committee have been eagerly registration rates: see putting together an exciting line up of papers and speakers. The preliminary program outlines www.ims-asc2014.com/ the key themes that will be addressed and a broad structure for the 4 day conference. registration-page/ You can view the Preliminary Program at http://www.ims-asc2014.com/program/ Please note this is work in progress and subject to change, the full program will be available in the next few weeks. Satellite Events A series of pre- and post-conference workshops will support the conference. Early booking is recommended. See http://www.ims-asc2014. com/asc-2014-satellite-events/ for more information. Why come to Sydney? Sydney, Australia’s gateway city and the capital of New South Wales is built around one of the largest, most beautiful harbours in the world with plenty to see and do during your time here. Sydney is a vigorous, cosmopolitan city, a major industrial, business and commercial centre and is endlessly fascinating in its variety and its beauty.

satellite IMS-ASC meeting IMS co-sponsored meeting Workshop on Finance, Probability and Statistics (FPS) July 2–5, 2014 University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) w http://www.qfrc.uts.edu.au/IMS-FPS-2014 This, the Fourth IMS-FPS workshop, is a satellite workshop to the joint Australian Statistical Conference & IMS Annual Meeting, which will be held in Sydney from 7–10 July. The previous IMS-FPS workshops were held in 2011 at Columbia University, in 2012 at the University of California at Berkeley and in 2013 at the National University of Singapore. The goal of the workshop is to bring together leading academic experts, practitioners and junior researchers, which will highlight important contributions to mathematical and computational finance made through the use of statistics and probability. The workshop topics include, but are not limited to: Computational and simulation methods in finance and risk management; Credit and liquidity risk; Energy and weather derivatives; Financial time series and econometrics; High frequency trading: data, models and strategies; Volatility models. Please see the website for details. April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 23

IMS co-sponsored meeting 37th Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications ENAR, 2015–2017 July 28–August 1, 2014 IMS sponsored meeting Buenos Aires, Argentina 2015 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting w http://mate.dm.uba.ar/~probab/spa2014/ March 15–18, 2015 SPA 2014: Call for Contributed Sessions Miami, Florida, USA The 37th Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications will take place at the w http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, from July 28 to August 1, 2014. The meeting will consist of Plenary Lectures, Invited Sessions and Contributed Sessions conducted in parallel. IMS sponsored meeting Plenary speakers: Anton Bovier, Ivan Corwin, Laszlo Erdös, Antonio Galves, Christophe 2016 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting Garban, Martin Hairer (Lévy Lecture), Milton Jara, Gady Kozma, Eyal Lubetzky, Sylvie March 6–9, 2016 Méléard, David Nualart (IMS Medallion Lecture), Felix Otto, Tomohiro Sasamoto, Scott Austin, Texas Sheffield, Fabio Toninelli, and Balint Tóth, and a Doeblin Prize Lecture to be announced. w http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm The Invited Sessions can be found athttp://mate.dm.uba.ar/~probab/spa2014/program. html#invitedsessions IMS sponsored meeting Organizing Committee: Inés Armendáriz, Pablo A. Ferrari, Pablo Groisman, Matthieu 2017 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting Jonckheere, Nora Muler, Leonardo T. Rolla. Contact e [email protected] March 12–15, 2017 Washington DC IMS co-sponsored meeting w http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm 38th Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications July 13–17, 2015, Oxford, United Kingdom IMS co-sponsored meeting w TBC INFORMS Applied Probability Society Conference 2015 IMS co-sponsored meeting July 5–8, 2015, Istanbul, Turkey Second Conference of the International Society of Nonparametric Statistics (II ISNPS) w TBC June 12–16, 2014 Cadiz, Spain IMS sponsored meeting w www.isnpstat.org 2014 WNAR/IMS Annual Meeting IMS Representative on Program Committees: Juan Romo June 15–18, 2014 Following the successful I ISNPS (International Society of NonParametric Statistics) con- Honolulu, Hawaii, USA ference in 2012 in Greece, Ricardo Cao, Wenceslao Gonzalez-Manteiga and Juan Romo are w http://www.wnar.org/ organizing the II ISNPS Conference in Cadiz, southern Spain, from June 12–16, 2014. The 2014 WNAR/IMS meeting will be The conference hotel is located 60 km (40 miles) from Jerez de la Frontera airport. The June 15-18, in Hawaii. It will be held at the province of Cadiz is an exceptional and unique area, with high quality cultural, ecologic and Conference Center of the University of gastronomic values, including villages, landscapes and 138 km of first class beaches with coves, Hawaii at Manoa, in Honolulu, HI. inlets and long stretches of sand. Jerez de la Frontera has an international airport with direct connections to many European cities. IMS co-sponsored meeting The IMS co-sponsored conference will put together recent advances and trends in several Frontier Probability Days areas of nonparametric statistics in order to facilitate the exchange of research ideas, promote May 18–20, 2014 collaboration among researchers from all over the world and contribute to the further devel- University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ opment of the field. The program (scheduled on June 12, 13, 15 & 16; June 14 will be a free w http://math.arizona.edu/~fpd/ day) will include plenary talks, special invited talks, invited talks and contributed talks on all IMS Representatives on Program areas of nonparametric statistics. Deadline for submission of contributed talks is February 15, Committees: Tom Alberts, Davar 2014. Koshnevisan, Firas Rassoul-Agha, Sundar For any questions, please email [email protected] and see the webpage. Sethuraman, Edward Waymire Web page under construction; details to follow. 24 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

More IMS meetings around the world

IMS co-sponsored meeting IMS co-sponsored meeting International Symposium in Statistics (ISS) 2015 10th Cornell Probability Summer School Parametric and Semi-parametric Inferences for Spatial-temporal, and July 20–August 1, 2014 Multi-dimensional Familial-longitudinal Data Cornell University, Ithaca, NY July 6–8, 2015 w http://www.math.cornell.edu/~cpss/ Memorial University, St. John’s, Canada Registration is expected to open in January with a tentative deadline w http://www.iss-2015-stjohns.ca/ of April 7, 2014. Funding is available to support local expenses of The ISS-2015 is planned to discuss the methodological advances and some advanced graduate students and young researchers. Applications challenges in the analysis of continuous and discrete correlated data for funding will be accepted during the registration process. both in parametric and semi-parametric setup. Main Lecturers The main topics of interest of this symposium are: Three main lecturers will each give six 75-minute lectures: • Multivariate analysis in a wider non-normal elliptical distribution Gerard Ben Arous (New York University) setup; Eyal Lubetzky (Microsoft Research, Theory Group),Time-space • Multivariate analysis for longitudinal categorical data; information percolation for the stochastic Ising model • Time series volatility models; Jeremy Quastel (University of Toronto), The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang • Spatial-temporal data analysis; equation and universality class • Familial longitudinal data analysis in semi-parametric setup. Other speakers will be invited to give short talks. It is also of interest to discuss further challenges in analysis when data may contain measurement errors, missing values, and/or outliers, for IMS co-sponsored meeting example. Frontiers of Hierarchical Modeling in Observational Studies, Complex The scientific program will include keynote, special invited, Surveys and Big Data invited, and contributed paper sessions. Conference Honoring Professor Malay Ghosh May 29–31, 2014 IMS co-sponsored meeting University of Maryland, College Park, USA Third IMS Asia Pacific Rim Meetings w http://www.jpsm.umd.edu/ghosh June 30–July 3, 2014 IMS Representative on Program Committees: Gauri S. Datta Taipei, Taiwan NEW website http://ims-aprm2014.ntu.edu.tw/ The third IMS Asia Pacific Rim Meetings will take place in Howard IMS co-sponsored meeting International House (http://intl-house.howard-hotels.com/), Taipei, International Workshop in Applied Probability NEW Taiwan, during the period Monday, June 30–Thursday, July 3, 2014. June 16–19, 2014 This meeting series provides an excellent forum for scientific commu- Antalya, Turkey nications and collaborations for researchers in Asia and the Pacific w www.iwap2014.org Rim. It also promotes communications and collaborations between The provisional program is available for the International Workshop the researchers in this area and those from other parts of the world. in Applied Probability (June 16–19, 2014, in Antalya, Turkey). The The program covers a wide range of topics in statistics and theme of IWAP 2014 is “Probability: The Measure of Tomorrow”. probability, presenting recent developments and the state of the art Early-bird registration until March 31. See www.iwap2014.org in a variety of modern research topics and in applications. For more The plenary speakers are Ismihan Bayramoglu (Izmir University information, you may contact the program chairs: Byeong U. Park of Economics, Turkey); Antonis Economou (University of Athens, ([email protected]) and Feifang Hu ([email protected]). Greece); Jingchen Liu (Columbia University, USA); Jorge Navarro The conference website has been recently changed tohttp://ims- (Universidad De Murcia, Spain); Sheldon M. Ross (University of aprm2014.ntu.edu.tw/ Southern California, USA); Nozer D. Singpurwalla (City University of Hong Kong); Michael S. Waterman (University of Southern California, USA) April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 25

Other meetings around the world

2014 Rutgers Statistics Symposium: NEW Celebrating Women in Statistics: Know Your Power NEW Statistics and the Century of Data May 15–17, 2014 May 2, 2014 Research Triangle Park, NC, USA Piscataway, New Jersey, USA w http://women-in-stats.org w http://www.stat.rutgers.edu/conferences/centuryofdata2014 Know Your Power: Enticing, Elevating and Empowering Careers of Contact Han Xiao e [email protected] Women in Statistics. Connect…learn…grow! You’re invited to this The Department of Statistics and Biostatistics of Rutgers University new conference highlighting the achievements and career interests of will hold the “2014 Rutgers Statistics Symposium: Statistics and women in statistics. Special sessions focused on career development, the Century of Data” on Friday, May 2, 2014, with invited speakers work presented by leading researchers, and opportunities to connect Professors David Donoho (Stanford University), Jianqing Fan with peers will provide unique perspectives on the role of women in (Princeton University), David Madigan (Columbia University), Peter today’s statistical fields. McCullagh (University of Chicago), Giovanni Parmigiani (Harvard See the conference website for details on registration, travel University), and Bin Yu (University of California, Berkeley). awards, and poster abstract submission.

Second Barcelona Summer School on Stochastic Analysis NEW International Colloquium on Stein’s Method, Concentration NEW July 7–11, 2014 Inequalities, and Malliavin Calculus Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain June 29–July 2, 2014 w http://www.crm.cat/en/Activities/Pages/ActivityFoldersAndPages/ Château de la Bretesche in Missillac, Loire-Atlantique, France Curs%202013-2014/2ndStochasticAnalysis/default.aspx w http://dornsife.usc.edu/conferences/steincolloquium/ Contact: Lluís Quer-Sardanyons e [email protected] The confirmed speakers are: Jay Bartroff, University of Southern The Barcelona Summer School on Stochastic Analysis is a one-week California; Stéphane Boucheron, University Paris Diderot; Louis scientific activity consisting mainly of courses addressed to PhD stu- Chen, National University of Singapore; Laurent Decreusefond, dents and young researchers on current research topics in Stochastic Telecom ParisTech; Larry Goldstein, University of Southern Analysis. Selected participants are also given the opportunity to California; Michel Ledoux, Université de Toulouse; Erol Peköz, deliver short talks or to display posters. The courses in 2014 are Boston University; Gesine Reinert, University of Oxford; Adrian on Lévy processes and stochastic partial differential equations, and Röllin, National University of Singapore; Nathan Ross, University will be given, respectively, by Prof. René Schilling (TU Dresden, of Melbourne; Yvik Swan, Université de Liège; Ciprian Tudor, Germany) and Prof. Davar Khoshnevisan (University of Utah, USA). Université Paris 1

International Seminar on Stability Problems A day of lectures for the 90th birthday of David R. Cox NEW for Stochastic Models July 18, 2014 June 16–21, 2014 Nuffield College, Oxford, UK Trondheim, Norway w http://www.math.chalmers.se/~wermuth/DRC14.html w http://www.ipiran.ru/conference/stabil2014/ Group of organizers: Lucy Carpenter, Anthony Davison, Christl Registration to the International Seminar on Stability Problems for Donnelly, Valerie Isham, Nancy Reid, Nanny Wermuth Stochastic Models is extended until March 31. The Seminar will take Invited speakers: Helen Jenkins, Tom Johnston, Christiana place in Trondheim, Norway, from 16 to 21 of June, 2014. Further Kartsonaki, Ruth Keogh, Peter McCullagh, Paul Northrop, Andrea information about registration, accommodation, abstract submission, Rotnitzky and Rhian Daniel social events and registration fee payments is available at the webpage above. Registration is available via the website, and includes payment for registration fee and social events, as well as hotel booking. 26 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

More meetings around the world

Workshop on empirical processes and applications to statistics NEW NIMBioS Tutorial: Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics NEW September 10–11, 2014 August 4–9, 2014 Besançon, France Knoxville, Tennessee w https://trimestres-lmb.univ-fcomte.fr/Workshop-on-empiricial- w http://www.nimbios.org/tutorials/TT_eqg processes.html The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis This workshop takes place within a series of conferences in mathemat- (NIMBioS) is now accepting applications for its Tutorial, ics, named thematic trimesters of the Laboratoire de mathématiques “Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics,” to be held August 4–9, 2014, at de Besançon, the Université de Franche-Comté, France. NIMBioS. This workshop will encompass recent research works on empirical Objectives: Quantitative genetic theory has been applied to a processes theory and their applications to statistics. A non exhaustive wide range of phenomena including the evolution of differences list of subjects covered will be: between the sexes, sexual preferences, life history traits, plasticity of • asymptotic and non asymptotic theory of empirical processes traits, as well as the evolution of body size and other morphological based on independent samples or samples having specific measurements. This tutorial is for evolutionary biologists interested in dependence structure (mixing, positively or negatively, associated how quantitative genetics theory can be tested with data. Participants random, variables…) – graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty – will learn how to • applications to classification theory, model selection, penalization use R to build and test evolutionary models. There is a need for evolu- procedures tionary biologists to understand the field of evolutionary quantitative • More generally, all possible applications in semi or nonparametric genetics because of the ability to collect large amounts of data by inference computer, the development of statistical methods for changes of traits The plenary speakers of this workshop are: on evolutionary trees and for changes in a single species through time, Philippe Berthet (Univ. Toulouse), and the realization that quantitative characters will not soon be fully Laurent Bordes (Univ. Pau, to be confirmed), explained by genomics. Armelle Guillou (Univ. Strasbourg), Location: NIMBioS at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Guillaume Lecué (École Polytechnique) For more information about the tutorial and a link to the online No registration fees are required. The maximum number of application form, go to http://www.nimbios.org/tutorials/TT_eqg participants is 35. Abstracts should be submitted by e-mail to davit. There are no fees associated with this tutorial. Tutorial participation [email protected], before May 31. Registration is free of charge, in the tutorial is by application only. Individuals with a strong interest but mandatory; it is open until June 15. in the topic, including post-docs and graduate students, are encour- More information can be found on https://trimestres-lmb.univ- aged to apply, and successful applicants will be notified within two fcomte.fr/Workshop-on-empiricial-processes.html weeks of the application deadline. Food and Lodging: Breakfast and lunch will be provided at NIMBioS each day of the tutorial, as well as coffee and mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks. NIMBioS is not covering other expenses for participants, but a block of rooms will be reserved at a nearby If you’re organizing a hotel. More information will be available on our website soon about lodging, room rates, and how participants can make reservations. meeting and want it listed Application deadline: May 1, 2014 here, please visit the “submit a NIMBioS (http://www.nimbios.org) brings together researchers meeting” webpage and fill in the from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries details. Easy. to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, imstat.org/submit-meeting.html the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with additional support from The University of It’s free publicity! Tennessee, Knoxville. April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 27

Fifth Linnaeus University Workshop in Stochastic Analysis NEW One-day conference on Geometry and Statistics NEW and Applications Monday, June 23, 2014 June 11–13, 2014 University of Bath, UK Växjö, Sweden. w http://people.bath.ac.uk/kai21/conference.html w http://lnu.se/subjects/mathematics/conferences/lsaa---stochastic- We would like to bring this one-day conference not only to the analysis-and-applications/lsaa2014?l=en attention of the Statistics community but also to Geometers of all This three-day workshop deals with analytical and numerical results kinds! We will really appreciate if you can help in advertising this of stochastic models. It addresses a topic of intensive and growing meeting with the Geometry group of researchers and students at your research activities: particle aspects, equilibria, and related methods in institution! stochastic finance. The aim of this one-day conference is to attract pure mathemati- cians and in particular, Geometers, to work together with Statisticians International Congress of Women Mathematicians 2014 in this area by highlighting interesting and powerful applications of August 12 & 14, 2014, Seoul, Korea Geometry to Statistics. The conference takes a very broad view of the w https://sites.google.com/site/icwm2014/ interplay between Geometry (Differential, Algebraic, Convex, etc) The International Congress of Women Mathematicians 2014 and Statistics, which includes: (ICWM2014), starts on August 12, just preceding ICM 2014 in * the model functional space approach called Information Seoul, Korea, and continues its schedule intertwined with that of its Geometry which endows the space of probability densities with (much larger) ICM sibling. Please display the poster that you can appropriate geometric structures and from there develops method download from the congress website. to analyse data * the data geometry approach which gives geometries to the space of the data and for which prominent examples are the computa- tional geometry based algorithms used in Robust Statistics As such, the conference intends to bring opportunities * to extend the scope of the applications of Geometry research and hence to increase its impact * to develop new projects (research and student) jointly with Statisticians The format of this one-day conference consists of a series of talks by researchers who have worked on this area that will highlight the key elements of the interplay between Geometry and Statistics in their particular areas of expertise. Confirmed speakers: Eva Riccomagno (Genoa); Peter Jupp (St Andrews); CTJ Dodson (Manchester); Johannes Rauh (Max Planck Institute); Paul Marriott (Waterloo); Frank Critchley (Open University); Michael Betancourt (Warwick); Karim Anaya-Izquierdo (Bath) Posters: Postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers in both areas (Geometry and/or Statistics) are particularly encouraged to submit a poster. If you would like to present your poster please indicate so in the registration form. Main contact: Karim Anaya-Izquierdo 28 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

More meetings around the world

NEW 2014 NISS/ASA/IMS Writing Workshop for Junior Researchers NEW Flint: One City – 100 Years Under Variability Sunday 3 August & Wednesday 6 August at JSM June 24–28, 2014 Boston, USA Flint, Michigan, USA w http://www.amstat.org/meetings/wwjr/registration/ w http://bulldogs.kettering.edu/fisc/ The National Institute of Statistical Science (NISS), the American Statistical Association Contact: Leszek Gawarecki (ASA), and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) will hold a writing workshop for e [email protected] junior researchers (subject to availability of funds). The goal of the workshop is to provide This international conference is being orga- instruction in how to write journal articles and grant proposals. Participants will be required nized by Kettering University to celebrate to provide a recent sample of their writing, which will be reviewed by a senior mentor. The the IYS 2013 and the 175th anniversary of sample could be a current draft of an article to be submitted for publication, or it could be an the ASA. Our intention is to bring together early version of a grant proposal. (Submission of the manuscript will be required as part of the statisticians with expertise in statistical registration process. Prior experience suggests that the best results come from submitting an modeling, education, and applications. The early draft of something that is written solely or primarily by the participant.) conference will focus on multi-disciplinary The mentors will be former journal editors and program officers, who will critique (a -por use of historical data for urban communities. tion of ) the submitted material. Individual feedback will be provided as part of the opening Participants may use any data of their choice. session, and participants will be expected to prepare a revision in response. The workshop will Analysis and models based on historical open with a one-day session of general instruction in effective writing techniques and will records will be included or discussed in the close with discussion and debriefing at a follow-up lunch. plenary sessions, invited talks, presentations The full-day session is scheduled for Sunday, August 3, in Boston, Massachusetts at the and tutorials. Data about the City of Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM). At the close of the formal activities, mentors will meet Flint, MI, consisting of up to 100 years of individually with participants to go over the writing samples they submitted. Each participant demographic, health, labor, census, and crime will then prepare a revision of a critiqued portion of the paper and return this to the mentor records will be summarized in advance of the by Tuesday evening, August 5. Mentors and participants will meet again in conjunction with a conference and made available to the partici- lunch on Wednesday, August 6, to discuss the success of the revisions. The lunch program will pants. The Flint history spans the early years also include general feedback to participants, mentors, and organizers. of the automotive industry, the force behind Attendance will be limited and will depend on the number of mentors available. To apply, Flint’s growth, as well as its decline, both of go to http://www.amstat.org/meetings/wwjr/registration/. Applications are due by June 1, which have had an impact on the Flint com- 2014, and successful applicants will be notified by June 30. Applications received after June munity. Each Session of the conference will 1 will be considered if space is available. There is no fee for participation. Participants will start with an extended presentation of the receive lunch on Sunday, August 3, and Wednesday, August 7. Participants must agree to statistical achievements and perspectives in attend both the full Sunday session and the Wednesday lunch. We have requested funding for the discussed area, followed by several talks partial travel support. on current research and results. This workshop is designed for researchers with a recent Ph.D. in either statistics or Early bird registration and abstract biostatistics. Top priority will go to those who have held the Ph.D. for 0-3 years. The limited submission by April 25, 2014. available funding will be used to support attendance by researchers at U.S. institutions. Tutorials will include: Current Ph.D. students who are completing their degree before the end of the summer and The measure of dependence between ran- who will be at US institutions in the fall will also be considered. If space is available, research- dom events, its statistical evaluation and use; ers at institutions outside the US will be admitted to the workshop, but will not be provided The use of the copula approach for mod- with travel support. eling dependent components in multivariate distributions; Life insurance in actuarial modeling; The matrix-analytic method in computa- tional stochastics; and The importance of Bayesian statistics in statistical education. April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 29

Call for Short Course Proposals: 2015 ISI World Statistics Congress NEW July 26–31, 2015 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil w http://www.isi2015.ibge.gov.br/ The Short Course Committee for the 2015 World Statistics Congress (SCC-2015) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has been appointed. The Committee is chaired by Alicia Carriquiry, and the full list of members is given below. The SCC-2015 has been asked to develop a short course program to serve the diverse needs of participants at the WSC. The SCC-2015 is inviting the members of ISI and its Associations to submit proposals for short courses. The ISI views the short course program as an important part of its statistical capacity building activities. Therefore, courses aimed at the development of statistical capacity of participants in the local region, including young statisticians, are especially welcome. The proposals received from members and other sources will be reviewed by the SCC-2015, which will develop the short course program for WSC 2015 and submit it to the EC for approval. Here is some information about the short course program: • Courses should be 1 to 2 days in length and will be offered immediately before the WSC 2015 meetings. • Topics may be drawn from any area of statistics represented in the ISI and its Associations. Courses that are aimed at the needs of the participants in the local region and young statisticians will be given preference. • Short courses will be offered in partnership with the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) which is hosting the WSC. The enuev for the short courses will be identified by our IBGE partners. • The fees for the courses will be determined by the ISI. They will be set at reasonably low levels to allow participants from developing coun- tries to participate. • Up to two instructors will be reimbursed for local expenses (lodging and per diem at the UN rate) for the period that they are teaching the short courses. Travel expenses to the WSC in Rio de Janeiro will not be covered, as it is expected that the instructors are already planning to attend the WSC. Unfortunately, we cannot provide any honorarium. It is hoped that instructors will view this as a service to the interna- tional statistical community. Please provide the following information when you submit your proposal: 1. Title of short course 2. Names and contact information of instructor(s) 3. Description of course (500 words or less) 4. Anticipated course length (1 to 2 days) 5. Description of course materials that will be provided to partici- pants (e.g. course pack, presentation slides, recommended text, Summer Institute in Statistics for Clinical Research NEW etc.) June 23–27, 2014 6. Description of target audience, needed prerequisites, etc. University of Washington, Seattle Proposals should be submitted to Liliana Happel at [email protected] w http://www.biostat.washington.edu/suminst/siib/general no later than May 15, 2014. Contact: Mónica Feliú-Mójer e [email protected] If you have questions concerning the short course program or The Summer Institute in Statistics for Clinical Research (SISCR your proposal, please feel free to contact the Chair of SCC-2015, 2014), consists of a series of half-day, one-day and one-and-a-half Alicia Carriquiry, by e-mail at [email protected]. day workshops conducted by experts in the field and designed to The members of SCC-2015: Alicia Carriquiry (Chair); Tomas introduce participants to modern issues in the design and conduct of Aluja (IASC); Ayse Bilgin (IASE); Mick Couper (IASS); Lawrence clinical trials and the statistical analysis of clinical trial data. Topics Cox (ISI); Yulia Gel (TIES); Regina Liu (ISBIS); Pedro Morettin covered include enrichment, design and missing data in randomized (BS); Mario Palma (IAOS); Maysa de Magalhães (Liaison with the clinical trials, personalized medicine, and comparative effectiveness, LOC); Steven Heeringa (Ex-officio); Liliana Happel (ISI PO) among others. Prerequisites are minimal. 30 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

Employment Opportunities around the world

Canada: Toronto, ON United States: Palmer, AK Fields Institute State of Alaska, Department of Fish & Game, Wildlife Conservation Postdoctoral Fellowship Biometrician II/III (Flexibly Classed) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=17122278 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16964962

China: Shanghai United States: Dunwoody, GA Center for Statistical Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company Distinguished Research Fellow (Associate Professor), Professor, Credit Card Modeler - Statistician Endowed Chair Professor http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=14484113 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16897387 United States: Indianapolis, IN Hong Kong Eli Lilly The University of Hong Kong Statistician Tenure-Track Associate Professor/Assistant Professor http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16839067 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16755737 United States: Indianapolis, IN Kazakhstan: Astana Eli Lilly Nazarbayev University Biostatistician Assistant/Associate/Full Professor http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16839026 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=15921573 United States: Baltimore, MD Singapore Johns Hopkins University Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Bloomberg Distinguished Professor - Mathematics & Applied Faculty positions in Mathematics Mathematics http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16464944 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16101447

Switzerland: Fribourg United States: East Lansing, MI Michigan State University, Department of Statistics & Probability The Faculty of Science of the University of Fribourg / Switzerland Associate or Full Professor (Department of Mathematics) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16431985 invites applications for a tenured position of an United States: Lincoln, NE Associate Professor in Department of Statistics, U. Nebraska–Lincoln Post-doctoral research associate Mathematics http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16534391

The selected candidate will have a record of successful United States: Columbus, OH independent research in probability and its applications. Alliance Data She/He is expected to establish a funded research programme and to teach students in mathematics and Predictive Analytics Intern natural sciences. http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=16895811 More information about the position, the application procedure (deadline: June 30, 2014) as well as the Department of Mathematics, facilities and curriculum are available at www.unifr.ch/science/positions.

::: Advertise current job opportunities for only $275 for 60 days ::: See http://jobs.imstat.org for details ::: April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 31 International Calendar of Statistical Events IMS meetings are highlighted in maroon with the logo, and new or updated entries have the NEW or UPDATED symbol. t means telephone, f fax, e email and w website. Please submit your meeting details and any corrections to Elyse Gustafson at [email protected]

April 2014 May 29–31: University of Maryland, College Park, USA. April 6–8: NIMBioS, Knoxville, TN. Computing in the Cloud w Frontiers of Hierarchical Modeling in Observational Studies, http://www.nimbios.org/tutorials/TT_cloud Complex Surveys and Big Data: Conference Honoring Professor Malay Ghosh w http://www.jpsm.umd.edu/ghosh April 24–25: NIMBioS at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. NIMBioS Investigative Workshop: Modeling Contamination of May 30: Philadelphia, PA. 2014 Mid-Atlantic Genetic Epidemiology Fresh Produce w http://www.nimbios.org/workshops/WS_produce. and Statistics (MAGES) Conference: Integrated Systems Biology html Analytical Methods for Epidemiological Studies of Complex Traits w http://www.med.upenn.edu/magesconference/index.shtml April 28–30: NIMBioS at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. NIMBioS Investigative Workshop: Predictive Models for June 2014 Ecological Risk Assessment w http://www.nimbios.org/workshops/ WS_era.html June 1–4: Galveston, Texas, USA 50th Anniversary SRC w http:// srcos2014.rice.edu/ April 28–May 23: CMSS, Peechi, Kerala. 2014 SERB School on Matrix Methods & Fractional Calculus w http://cmsintl.org/ June 2–6: Institute of Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics, Brown University, Providence, RI. Computational May 2014 Nonlinear Algebra w http://icerm.brown.edu/tw-14-3-cna June 2–6: NEW May 2: Piscataway, NJ, USA. 2014 Rutgers Statistics Będlewo, Poland. 11th International Conference on Symposium: Statistics and the Century of Data w http://www.stat. Ordered Statistical Data w http://bcc.impan.pl/14OrderStat/ rutgers.edu/conferences/centuryofdata2014 June 2–27: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. May 9–11: Atlanta, GA. 3rd Workshop on Biostatistics & PIMS Summer School in Probability w http://www.math.ubc.ca/ Bioinformatics w http://www2.gsu.edu/~matyiz/2014 workshop/ Links/ssprob14/ May 12-14: Hilversum, The Netherlands. 22nd Meeting of PhD June 3–5: NIMBioS, Knoxville, TN. Leptospirosis Modeling w students in Stochastics w http://www.ewi.tudelft.nl/over-de-faculteit/ http://www.nimbios.org/workshops/WS_leptospirosis afdelingen/toegepaste-wiskunde/statistiek/aio-netwerk/next- June 7–10: Lisbon, Portugal. 7th Chaotic Modeling and Simulation meeting/ International Conference (CHAOS2014) w http://www.cmsim.org NEW May 15–17: Research Triangle Park, NC, USA. Celebrating June 8–12: Ljubljana, Slovenia. 23rd International Workshop on Women in Statistics: Know Your Power w http://women-in-stats.org Matrices and Statistics (IWMS) w www.law05.si/iwms May 18–20: University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. Frontier NEW June 11–13: Växjö, Sweden. Fifth Linnaeus University Probability Days w http://math.arizona.edu/~fpd/ Workshop in Stochastic Analysis and Applications w http://lnu.se/ May 19–21: NIMBioS, Knoxville, TN. Parameter Estimation for subjects/mathematics/conferences/lsaa---stochastic-analysis-and- Dynamic Biological Models w http://www.nimbios.org/tutorials/ applications/lsaa2014?l=en TT_data.html June 11–13: Pau, France. ALT’2014 (reliability testing and analysis) May 20–22: Washington, DC. ISBA George Box Research w http://alt2014.sciencesconf.org/ Workshop on Frontiers of Statistics w http://business.gwu.edu/ decisionsciences/i2sds/conferences.cfm June 11–14: Lisbon, Portugal. 3rd Stochastic Modeling Techniques and Data Analysis Conference w http://www.smtda.net/ May 26–28: Paris, France. PLS 2014: 8th International Conference on Partial Least Squares and Related Methods w www.pls14.org/ June 12–16: Cadiz, Spain. Second Conference of the 32 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

International Calendar continued

June 2014 continued June 27–28: Beijing, China. International Symposium on Financial Engineering and Risk Management 2014 (FERM 2014) w http:// International Society of Nonparametric Statistics (II ISNPS) w www.stat.wisc.edu/~zjz/FERM2014/index.html www.isnpstat.org June 28–July 2: June 15–18: Honolulu, Hawaii. 2014 WNAR/IMS Annual Winthrop University, SC, USA. NSF–CBMS Meeting w TBC Mathematical Phylogeny Conference w www.birdnest.org/ phylogeny/ June 15–18: Portland, OR, USA. 2014 ICSA and KISS Joint Applied Statistics Symposium w http://www.statkiss.org/ NEW June 29–July 2: Missillac, France. International Colloquium icsakiss2014 on Stein’s Method, Concentration Inequalities, and Malliavin Calculus w http://dornsife.usc.edu/conferences/steincolloquium/ NEW June 16–19: Antalya, Turkey. International Workshop in Applied Probability w www.iwap2014.org June 29–July 2: Rotterdam, The Netherlands. 34th International Symposium on Forecasting w http://forecasters.org/isf/ June 16–21: Trondheim, Norway. XXXII International Seminar on Stability Problems for Stochastic Models w http://www.ipiran.ru/ June 30–July 3: Taipei, Taiwan. Third IMS Asia Pacific Rim conference/stabil2014/ Meetings w http://ims-aprm2014.ntu.edu.tw/

June 16–26: Búzios, Brazil. Pan-American Advanced Study Institute June 30–July 3: Athens, Greece. 8th Annual International on Spatial Statistics w http://www.stat.washington.edu/peter/PASI/ Conference on Mathematics Education & Statistics Education PASI_2014.html w http://www.atiner.gr/edumatsta.htm

June 17–20: Bogotá, Colombia. First International Congress on Actuarial Science and Quantitative Finance w http://www. July 2014 matematicas.unal.edu.co/icasqf/ July 1–4: Montpellier, France. International Statistical Ecology June 18–20: Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Algebraic and Discrete Conference w http://isec2014.sciencesconf.org/ w http://nimbios.org/ Biological Models for Undergraduate Courses July 2–5: University of Technology, Sydney. Workshop on tutorials/TT_mathbio Finance, Probability and Statistics w http://www.qfrc.uts.edu.au/ June 20–21: San Diego, CA, USA. Combinatorial Stochastic IMS-FPS-2014 w http:// Processes: in celebration of Jim Pitman’s 65th birthday July 4–5: Taipei, Taiwan. Conference on Experimental Designs and www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/Pitman_Conference/ Analysis (CEDA) 2014 w http://www3.stat.sinica.edu.tw/ceda2014/

NEW June 23: w University of Bath, UK. Geometry and Statistics July 6–11: Florence, Italy. XXVII International Biometric Conference http://people.bath.ac.uk/kai21/conference.html (IBC) 2014 w http://www.ibs-italy.info/ibc-2014.html June 23–25: Center for Mathematical Sciences, University of July 7–9: Huquan Hotel, Mile, Yunnan, China. Building Statistical Cambridge, UK. Probability and Statistics in High and Infinite Methodology and Theory 2014: In honor of Jeff Wu’s 65th birthday Dimensions: Conference on the occasion of Evarist Giné’s 70th w http://www.stat.purdue.edu/~sunz/Jeff_2014/index.html Birthday w http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~nickl/Site/2014.html July 7–9: Coventry, UK. Computational Methods for Jump NEW June 23–27: University of Washington, Seattle. Summer Processes w http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/crism/ Institute in Statistics for Clinical Research w http://www.biostat. workshops/jumps/ washington.edu/suminst/siib/general July 7–10: Sydney, Australia. 2014 IMS Annual Meeting with NEW June 24–28: Flint, Michigan, USA. Flint: One City – 100 Australian Statistical Conference w http://www.asc-ims2014.com/ Years Under Variability w http://bulldogs.kettering.edu/fisc/ April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 33

NEW July 7–11: Bellaterra, Spain. 2nd Barcelona Summer School Mathematicians: ICM2014 w http://www.icm2014.org on Stochastic Analysis w http://www.crm.cat/en/Activities/Pages/ August 24–28: Linköping, Sweden. LINSTAT2014 w http://www. ActivityFoldersAndPages/Curs%202013-2014/2ndStochasticAnalysis/ mai.liu.se/LinStat2014/ default.aspx August 25–27: Kermanshah, Iran. 12th Iranian Statistical July 11–13: Riverside, CA. 2014 International Indian Statistical Conference w http://isc12.razi.ac.ir/index.php?slc_lang=en&sid=1 Association Conference w http://2014iisa.intindstat.org August 25–29: Kansai University, Osaka, Japan. Stochastic Processes, July 14–18: Cancun, Mexico. 12th World Meeting of ISBA Analysis and Mathematical Physics w http://stoc-proc.com/ w http://www.isba2014.eventos.cimat.mx/ (ISBA2014) sympo/2014/SPAMP2014.htm NEW July 18: Oxford, UK. A day of lectures for the 90th birthday of David R. Cox w http://www.math.chalmers.se/~wermuth/DRC14. September 2014 html NEW September 10–11: Besançon, France. Workshop on empirical July 20–August 1: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. 10th Cornell processes and applications to statistics w https://trimestres-lmb.univ- Probability Summer School w http://www.math.cornell.edu/~cpss/ fcomte.fr/Workshop-on-empiricial-processes.html

July 28 – August 1: Buenos Aires, Argentina. 37th Conference September 11–13: Shymkent, Kazakhstan. ICAAM 2014 Second on Stochastic Processes and Applications International Conference on Analysis and Applied Mathematics w w http://mate.dm.uba.ar/~probab/spa2014/ http://www.icaam-online.org/index/

July 31 – August 2: Harvard, Cambridge, MA. 16th New Researchers September 22–26: Cartagena de Indias, Colombia XIII Conference w http://www.stat.harvard.edu/NRC2014/ CLAPEM: Congreso Latino-americano de Probabilidad y Estadística Matemática w http://www.clapem.unal.edu.co/ August 2014

August 2–7: Boston, MA. JSM2014 and ASA’s 175th December 2014 Anniversary w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/ December 18–21: Bogor, Indonesia. 13th Islamic Countries w http://www.iccs13. NEW August 3 & 6: JSM, Boston, USA. 2014 NISS/ASA/IMS Conference on Statistical Sciences (ICCS-13) Writing Workshop for Junior Researchers w http://www.amstat.org/ isoss.net meetings/wwjr/registration/ March 2015 NEW August 4–9: Knoxville, Tennessee. NIMBioS Tutorial: Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics w http://www.nimbios.org/ March 15–18: Miami, Florida. 2015 ENAR/IMS Spring tutorials/TT_eqg Meeting. w http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm

August 6–11: Seoul, Korea. 7th International Conference on Stochastic Analysis and its Applications 2014 (Satellite to June 2015 ICM2014) w http://www.icm2014.org/en/program/satellite/satellites June (exact dates TBC): Location TBC. 2015 WNAR/IMS August 12 & 14: Seoul, Korea. International Congress of Women Annual Meeting w TBC Mathematicians 2014 w http://www.kwms.or.kr/icwm2014

August 13–21: Seoul, Korea. International Congress of

Continues on page 33

UPDATED

NEW 34 . IMS Bulletin Volume 43 . Issue 3

International Calendar continued

July 2015 July 11–15: Toronto, ON, Canada. IMS Annual Meeting at 9th July 1–4: Kunming, Yunnan, P. R. China. 2015 IMS-China World Congress in Probability and Statistics w TBC International Conference on Statistics and Probability w http:// www.2015imschina.com July 2017

July 5–8: Istanbul, Turkey. INFORMS Applied Probability July 29 – August 3: Baltimore, USA. IMS Annual Meeting at Society Conference 2015 w TBC JSM 2017 w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/ July 6–8: Memorial University, St John’s, Canada. International Symposium in Statistics (ISS 2015) Parametric and Semi-parametric July 2018 Inferences for Spatial-temporal, and Multi-dimensional Familial- July 28 – August 2: Vancouver, Canada. JSM 2018 w http:// longitudinal Data. w http://www.iss-2015-stjohns.ca amstat.org/meetings/jsm/ NEW July 6–10: Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 2015 European Meeting of Statisticians w http://ems2015.nl/ July 2019 July 13–17: Oxford, UK. 38th Conference on Stochastic July 27–August 1: Denver, CO, USA. IMS Annual Meeting at Processes and Applications w TBC JSM 2019 w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/ July 26–31: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 2015 ISI World Statistics Congress w http://www.isi2015.ibge.gov.br/ August 2020 August 2015 August 1–6: Philadelphia, PA, USA. JSM 2020 w http://amstat. org/meetings/jsm/ August 8–13: Seattle, WA. IMS Annual Meeting at JSM2015. w http://amstat.org/meetings/jsm/

September 2015

September 21–25: Vienna, Austria. 8th International Workshop on Simulation w http://iws.boku.ac.at/index.php

March 2016 Are we missing something? If you know of any statistics or probability meetings which March 6–9: Austin, Texas. 2016 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting w http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm aren’t listed here, please let us know. You can email the details to Elyse Gustafson June 2016 at [email protected], or you can submit the

June 20–23: Geneva, Switzerland. ICES-V, the 5th International details yourself at http://www.imstat.org/ Conference on Establishment Statistics w TBC submit-meeting.html We’ll list them here in the Bulletin, July 2016 and on the IMS website too, at July 30 – August 4: Chicago, USA. JSM 2016 w http://amstat. www.imstat.org/meetings org/meetings/jsm/ April/May . 2014 IMS Bulletin . 35

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